


Upheaval

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Car Accidents, Gen, Prison, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-11-14 02:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11198274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: After a rollercoaster year filled with departing friends, jail time, and one of the most notorious killers the team has ever faced, the last thing anyone needs is this. A truck barrels toward a group of them, leaving their future uncertain, while others stand by unable to help in any way. What crosses their minds when their lives flash before their eyes? Even if the physical injuries don’t kill them, will they be able to recover?Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	1. Emily/Before the Crash

This was bad. Scratch had temporarily won, successfully driving the fearless Aaron Hotchner into witness protection. As Emily stood before her team, her best friends, she wondered whether or not she was doing the right thing. Did she think she merited being unit chief? Absolutely. But the fact of the matter was, she wouldn’t have gotten this position if it weren’t for Hotch going into witness protection. Hell, if Morgan hadn’t decided to quit for the sake of his growing family, he’d probably have been offered the opportunity before her. So being here, right now, looking toward a hopeful but scared group of friends she loved so dearly, was filling her with a range of emotions she couldn’t quite pin down. As she filed through the rolodex of thoughts in her mind, she realized she’d spaced out. 

“And Hotch’s last request was for Emily to be our very own Unit Chief?” Rossi said, motioning proudly toward where she stood in front of the monitor. Of course Rossi had the most experience out of anyone on the team, but even Emily knew there was no way in hell Rossi would be caught behind a desk at any moment if he didn’t have to be there.

Much to her surprise, everyone was extremely open to the idea of having her as their unit chief. More than open really. Granted no one had wished for Hotch to leave, but if their new unit chief had to be Emily or someone completely new, it would be her any day of the week. That was the only thing making her feel better. Again, it’s not as though she didn’t feel deserving of it, but stepping into the shoes of their boss, who shouldn’t have had to leave to begin with, was something she was definitely afraid of. 

On top of that, she and Mark had just gotten to a steady place in their relationship, so taking this position, as right as it felt for her, felt like putting a stop on the way things were. Yet she didn’t feel guilty about that. Should she have? Now she felt guilty for not feeling guilty. She was getting everything she’d ever wanted. Finally, she felt like herself, she was returning to the people she loved so much, and she was getting the job she’d always dreamed of. So why wasn’t she happier? 

\---

To think she wasn’t happy then. The thought made her laugh a hollow laugh that resounded through her cold office, which would be much colder if it weren’t for the pictures of those she loved on her desk. Emily had had no idea at the time what was to come, how unhappy and scared she would ultimately be. Filling the role of unit chief, and yet unable to help her dear friend and watching as the team barely held itself together. Could she have done anything differently? Would Hotch have been able to do anything that she couldn’t? The doubt plagued her mind as she stared across the room.

\---

In the weeks following her appointment as unit chief, the team sunk into a new routine. They were still very much the same team – the ones that would die for each other and do anything to solve a case, but with Emily at the helm, things ran slightly differently. Their cases seemed more and more outrageous, but like the professionals they were, they handled everything with finesse. While getting used to her new position, she had neglected to notice that something was up with her youngest friend. She knew his mother wasn’t doing well, but she’d assumed that was it. She had no idea that something else was going on, no less the extent of it, until a few hours earlier. “Hello, is this Agent Emily Prentiss?”

“Yes, this is she. To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Officer Luis Santiago from the PF. We have an Agent Spencer Reid in custody.” 

What? Why the hell was Spencer in Mexico? She’d heard nothing about him going to Mexico.

After being told Spencer was picked up with heroin and coke in his car, higher than hell on something with a bloodied hand, she’d immediately rounded up the team and headed down to Mexico. In his extreme desperation, Spencer had traveled down to Mexico to procure supplements for his mother. And now he was in a whole mess of trouble that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get him out of.

\---

She didn’t blame him for wanting to help his mother; she really didn’t. But having him in jail had been hell on the team as well as him. Everyone had been so worried about him that they hadn’t been able to work up to par with their normal standards. Plus, Emily could see that it had been ripping them apart. Day in and day out, they’d worked to get him out of jail, but no matter what they did it felt like one step forward and two steps back until finally they found that it wasn’t Scratch who had been targeting him, but Cat Adams, who’d wanted revenge after Spencer outsmarted her the year before.

After putting her job on the line (which she would do again in a heartbeat), Spencer was released from prison. He’d outsmarted Cat once again, and they’d found his mother alive. If they hadn’t…she didn’t even want to think about it. If they hadn’t found Diana alive, forget what it meant for the team, Spencer would’ve been pushed over the brink. He was already so close the edge with everything he’d been through. His mother’s death, at least like this, would’ve been the one puff of air that pushed him too far.

But she was alive, and Diana and Spencer were off for the night, spending some much needed time together before he was reinstated. After all that, just when she thought the team couldn’t take any more surprises, Morgan showed up with a message “from Garcia” that didn’t seem to be from her at all. And it wasn’t. This was Scratch, so she had Garcia check his location, while everyone checked in with Morgan. 

But now she needed a moment alone. It was all too much, and she needed time to clear her head before going after this son of a bitch.

Across the room, mocking her, was a green crystal vase filled the white carnations Mark had sent just days earlier. Already, they were dying, the edges turning a slight brown from lack of water and only the artificial light of the office for nourishment. In the insanity that had become her life – their lives – Emily had forgotten to take care of them. 

She hadn’t seen Mark in weeks. Even when she went overseas to liaise with an Interpol official on Spencer’s behalf, she hadn’t made the time to see him. And she hadn’t even spoken to him either. It had been at least a week since she heard his voice…but there was just so much more at stake right now, so many other things clouding the corners of her mind. 

The guilt washed over her like a silk robe slipping over her curves. It fit her so well it felt like second skin. She didn’t have enough of herself to give. She’d let down her boyfriend. She couldn’t help her team. Spencer had remained in prison for far too long, only being reunited with his mother after months and months of pain and isolation. It was all because she couldn’t do it all. She couldn’t do enough.

Again, she thought about the fact that she wouldn’t be where she is even it wasn’t for Scratch. He’d forced Hotch toward one path, Morgan chose another for the good of his wife and son, and she chose hers. Or was hers chosen for her? Did she come back for herself? Out of love for her family?

Honestly, she didn’t know anymore. 

As the silken robe of guilt tightened itself around her body like a vice, she picked up the vase, concentrating her fingertips on the beveled edges. Seemingly out of nowhere, she spun around on her heels and hurled the vase, flowers and all, toward the bulletproof glass that walled her office.

The vase shattered as it hit the glass, little sparkles of crystal floating down to the floor as the water and flower petals dripped slowly down the glass. Blurred by tears and the water from the vase, Emily could see that she’d gotten the attention of some of her teammates, as well as other members of the Bureau, but she didn’t care. After everything they’d been through, after everything she’d had to do to keep her family together, she was convinced she was allowed a little bit of a meltdown.

The unwanted onlookers turned away from the glass, not wanting to get in between Emily Prentiss and her anger. Reaching over, she pulled the blinds closed, encircling herself in darkness as the water pooled on the floor near her feet. 

Spencer had nearly been taken away for life. Penelope almost quit – afraid that the job had changed her irreparably. Although JJ had kept up appearances, Emily knew her best friend. Underneath it all, she was screaming. The newer members of the team had barely been able to get the chance to know each other before everyone had been thrown from the frying pan and into the fire. And Morgan had been kept out of the loop at Spencer’s behest, though it hurt them all to do it. It was all too much. It would be a miracle if the team managed to heal after all of this.

How had she gotten here? What had she done wrong that had allowed this to happen? Was she even strong enough for this?

It would be another few moments before they got any news on Scratch and his whereabouts, so she took the reprieve for what it was and allowed herself to sit in silence and darkness, contemplating the series of decisions that had brought her to this point.

After what felt like an eternity, but was in all actuality probably just a few moments, Garcia barged into her office, taken aback by the water, crystal and flowers scattering the floor. “What happened?” she asked softly in that Garcia way that never failed to make Emily smile.

“Nothing,” she said. “Forget it. Did you find something?”

Garcia nodded, handing her a piece of paper with coordinates on it before bringing her hand up to her face. “You are stronger than you know, Emily Prentiss.”

“I love you, Penelope Garcia,” she replied, a tired smile crawling its way across her face. “Thank you.”

“Now, let’s go get this son of a bitch.” 

—

Minutes later, Emily gathered everyone in the conference room, including Morgan. “I know we’ve all been through so much this past year, but we have a lead on Scratch…thanks to Morgan. He was sent a text message that claimed to be from Garcia, but was very obviously not from her. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that, so he wants us to go after him. What he doesn’t know about us however, is that we are not to be underestimated. We’re all tired. We’re all emotionally drained, but he chose the wrong team to fuck with. I just had a moment of self-pity in my office. I’m gonna give you all a moment to do the same.” After a minute of silence, she continued. “Now, shut it out, because we have work to do.” 

With Reid out of prison, it was easier for everyone to crack a smile, and take a joke. Emily couldn’t help but giggle as Penelope and Luke went at each other like siblings. “You’ll always get what you need with this one,” Morgan smiled. “Now I can’t go with you because I’m a civilian now, but I know my friends, and my new friends are gonna go and get the job done.”

As they filed out of the room, Morgan gave everyone a nod. “Stay safe, Prentiss.”

“I’ll do my best,” she replied. 

“Then I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Morgan’s reassuring smile did more than he knew.

Hurriedly, Emily, JJ, Tara, Rossi, Stephen and Luke ran down the stairs, slipping on their bulletproofs vests along the way. “We have to be prepared for anything,” Emily said as they piled into their cars - Emily, JJ and Luke in one, and Rossi, Stephen and Tara in the other. “We could be walking into a trap, so SWAT needs to comb over every inch of the place before we head in there. This man doesn’t make mistakes, so we need to be better.”

Blue and red lights flooded the cars as they headed out of the garage and into the streets, driving as quickly as humanly possible toward their location and hoping beyond all hope that Scratch would stay put, that he was tired of this game and was ready for a final showdown, which they’d win or die trying. Emily took a few deep cleansing breaths, attempting to bring out the inner Unit Chief that was very much hiding behind a cloud of doubt at the moment. 

Just as she steadied herself, she felt the tired blow out underneath them. In an instant, both BAU cars had spun out and she felt the air get punched out of her lungs. Luke was an expert at the wheel, so they were steadied fairly quickly. “You okay?” she asked through the comms. As the other members of the team said they were okay, she extended her arms toward Luke and JJ, knowing exactly what each of them had been going through recently. 

“We’re good,” Tara called, her ragged breaths heavy with anger. “Spike strips, really?”

“Is everyone okay?” She heard Garcia cry out. Panicked at the sound of the crash, she’d screamed so loudly she nearly blew out the comms.

“We’re okay, Garcia,” JJ said softly.

They were going to need new cars to get to Scratch’s location. Just as she was about to pull her phone from her pocket, a pair of bright lights clouded her eyes. Without warning, the car was hit by another vehicle, sending the two cars straight into each other. 

What could she have done differently? How did it all come to this?


	2. JJ/Before the Crash

“Henry!”

This was all she could do for him – besides helping at work of course. Other than that however, all she could do for him was help his mother. Simultaneously, it felt like so much and yet not enough. “Yea, Mom?” Henry had just come out from his room, hair a complete mess and still in his pajamas, but forever her sweet, little boy. “What’s wrong?”

Like her, Henry had become very perceptive of others in times of turmoil. She hated lying to him, but he was eight. He didn’t need this kind of sadness in his life yet, not the full on drowning she felt surrounded by. “Hey, baby. You and me and Michael are gonna go see Grandma Di for a little while today, okay? Can you go get changed?”

“Sure,” he said with a tightened smile. He had something else to say. Turning around, he walked toward his room, but halfway in between her and the innocence inside those four walls, he stopped in his tracks. “Mom?” 

“Yea, baby?”

“How much longer will Uncle Spencer be in jail?” Her heart immediately broke for him. She hadn’t lied to him in that regard. Wanting to be upfront, she told her son where his Uncle was, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong. A bad man framed him. “I love going to see Grandma Di, but I know she really wants to Uncle Spencer. He didn’t do anything wrong, right?” 

Kneeling down next to him, JJ pulled Henry into her embrace and caressed his face, still basically soft and untouched by the horrors of adulthood. She didn’t want to get into too much detail, but he constantly asked when his Uncle would be able to take him to the park again. “Come here, baby. Uncle Spencer didn’t do anything wrong. He was framed while going to find medication for Grandma Di – to keep her brain healthy for longer.” The idea of explaining Alzheimer’s and Schizophrenia to a boy that young felt like too much right now. Striking a balance between being honest and preserving childhood was a difficult decision every parent had to face. All she could hope was that she and Will were doing the right thing for Henry and Michael in the moment. “Someone took advantage of him and framed for hurting someone that he didn’t hurt.” 

“Why?” His innocence was almost refreshing; bringing the smallest amount of comfort to the tumultuousness that had enveloped her life. “Why would someone want to hurt Uncle Spencer?”

As a parent, one wanted to have all the answers. Letting one’s kids in on the secret – that one actually didn’t know everything – was another difficult decision one had to make on the journey of parenthood. “That’s what me and your aunts and uncles are trying to figure out,” she said honestly. “We don’t know. All we know is that someone wants to hurt him. Some people get more hurt physically and others get hurt up here.” She caressed his head, sneakily using the opportunity to fix his mussed-up hair. “This person knows that Uncle Spencer would be more hurt up here than he would if he got hit or punched, and that’s why they’re doing it. But I promise you, that I will not stop until Uncle Spencer can come home and take you to the park again, okay?” 

With a slight tear in his eye, Henry nodded his head, asking if his mother wanted him to pack up some of Michael’s things in his baby bag after he got dressed. “Absolutely, sweetheart. Thank you for being such a grown-up. I really appreciate it.” Her voice started to crack toward the end of the sentence, but as a mother, she had mastered the art of swallowing her emotions.

Quickly, Henry walked back across the hardwood floors of the beautiful home they lived in and wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck. “It’s okay, mommy. I’ll be the grown-up for a while.” And without another word, he ran back into his room.

The moment he closed the door, JJ choked out a sob, the tears streaming down her face in droves. It wasn’t fair. She cried and she cried and she cried, but she made a point of stifling the noise and burying her head in her knees as sat backed up against the wall. She hadn’t realized how she’d been crying until she felt the little hands of her eldest wrapped silently around her neck once more. “It’s okay, mommy.”

It was over. It was finally over. Actually, it had only just begun, but at least the healing process could begin for Spencer, and everyone who he loved that had stood by basically helpless as he withered away in prison, hurling towards the brink of insanity at breakneck speed.

After sending Spencer and his mother off to the safe house for the night, everyone else was ushered into Emily’s office where Morgan had been waiting. “Blondie,” he said, his voice hugging her like warm chocolate. It was as if in this moment she finally realized why Garcia called him hot chocolate. 

“We miss you,” she said softly, curling herself into him without realizing it.

Morgan hugged her tighter. He’d only just realized what happened to Spencer because he’d begged everyone to keep him in the dark. “I’ve missed you, too. I wish I could celebrate a little longer, but we may have a bigger problem here.” Pulling out his phone, he showed Emily the text from Garcia – it was without a doubt not from her. Someone was trying to set them up and considering Scratch was still out there and Cat Adams had been behind Spencer’s incarceration and not Scratch, this had to be him. 

When JJ looked over toward Garcia, she saw a flash of anger in the analyst’s eyes that she was not used to seeing – none of them were really. They were all tired, but they were all much more used to the depravity of the world than she was. She was too pure to have to deal with all of this. “Find where this came from,” Emily said, taking Morgan’s phone and handing it to her. “That’s where he’ll be. We find him and then we can all go home and get some much needed and even more deserved rest.”

“Yes, please,” Stephen said, his smooth baritone soothing everyone’s raw and frazzled nerves. After the death of his friend, there was nothing he wanted to do more right now than go home and spend some quality time with his wife and two kids. Granted, he was new to this team, but he wasn’t new to law enforcement and he was so exhausted. But Emily had asked for his help, and in the short while he’d been with the BAU, they’d become extended family. Right now, he was needed here. 

As Garcia left the room with the phone in hand, she ran her hand across Stephen’s a comforting gesture. If she had anything to do with it, this would all be over soon. “I’m just so glad we found Diana alive…I was so scared,” JJ said. “For her. For Spencer.” Once again, as she had too many times in the past year, she found herself overwhelmed with emotions.

“I just love seeing them, Jennifer,” Diana said, cradling the 18-month-old Michael in her arms.

After taking ages getting the boys dressed and ready to go, JJ had kissed Will goodbye and headed out the door. They hadn’t seen Diana in quite a few days, and JJ did her best to keep her visits consistent so that Diana’s fragile mind didn’t have too much time to travel between extremes – thinking that Spencer was either dead or that he would be coming home from the beach soon. Plus, it allowed for JJ to feel like she was doing something positive. They could only help Spencer so much from work, but making sure his mother was okay was something she knew could do, and she knew she could do well. Family had always been a strong suit of hers. “It’s no problem, Diana,” she said softly, placing her hand lovingly on the woman’s shoulders. “They love you so much – and I do too.” 

Henry was sitting across the room, flipping through pages of a photo album of Spencer’s old baby pictures. “You want me to tell you some stories?” Diana asked. Henry smiled wide and brought over the album, handing it over to Diana and sitting in right next to her. “Oh, this one?” She laughed pointing to a picture of a nearly-naked 6-year-old Spencer sitting on his bed. “He refused to get in the bathtub. Honestly, I think it was because I wanted him to get in and he was in a mood where no matter what I said, if I said it, he didn’t want to do it. Even at six, he kept spouting off facts about how bathing every day was actually detrimental to one’s health. Mind you, he hadn’t bathed in two days when I took this picture.”

This was why JJ loved coming to see her. In addition to helping ease Spencer’s mind, it eased hers - especially on the days when Diana was lucid. Like today. “That sounds like Spencer,” JJ laughed, watching as Henry giggled at the mess of pictures of his Uncle refusing to take a bath. “Frankly, it sounds like Henry sometimes too.” 

“I don’t smell, that’s why I shouldn’t have to take baths all the time,” he said, imitating his Uncle’s childhood smirk.

“That’s what Spencer said,” Diana replied. “But believe me, all of you little boys are smelly.” She reached out to tickle him and JJ wished more than anything that she could snap shot this moment and stay in it forever, but alas, that wasn’t to be.

After another hour or so of trading stories about dirty, smelly little boys, Diana started yawning, which JJ knew was her cue to leave her with her nurse. “We’ll see you soon, okay Diana?”

JJ’s eyes shut tight when Diana turned around. The look of confusion had returned. “Okay,” she said, nodding as she looked between JJ and her boys. “When will Spencer be home from the beach?” 

“In a little while,” JJ said sadly, ushering Henry out into the hallway before he could say anything that might upset Diana. “He misses you though. He can’t wait to see you.” 

Talking with Morgan and knowing Diana and Spencer were reunited definitely made her feel better, but this past year had been fraught with so much pain that even now, she was overwhelmed. Apparently, everyone else was as well, because they all went to different corners of the Bureau to decompress while Garcia ran some tests on Morgan’s phone. 

She watched as Stephen pulled out his phone to text his wife that he wouldn’t be home for a while longer. Behind her, Tara was silently kicking her desk. Headstrong and determined, Tara was damn tired of being two steps behind Scratch at all times. Morgan had gone to talk with Garcia, who was more overwhelmed than any of them, and Luke was just staring down the hallway where Spencer had walked away with his mother. Although unspoken, JJ was pretty sure she knew what lay deep inside Luke’s mind. Now that Spencer’s story had been saved, maybe he’d finally tell him what he’d been thinking and afraid to speak aloud.

Just as she allowed herself to drift off into the happiness that could come after Scratch was captured, she was jolted out of her reverie by a crash in Emily’s office.

For a second, she thought about going to check on her friend. As unit chief, Emily was under even more pressure than the rest of them, but she shook her head and decided to let it go. They all needed time alone.

Finally, Garcia came back with a location and after a short pep talk from Emily, they all headed out to catch this bastard. God, she was so tired. After he was caught, JJ was going to ask Emily about taking a week off to spend with her boys. “We could be walking into a trap,” Emily said, explaining how they were going to approach the house as the cars left the Bureau. SWAT had to go ahead of them and make sure they weren’t walking into a maze of traps.

As the squad car lights blinked in and out of her vision, JJ glanced to the side and placed her hand on Emily’s, giving it a light squeeze. “It’s almost over,” she mouthed, being shocked as the tires blew out from under them, sending the cars into a tailspin.

“We’re good,” she heard Tara call out. It had all happened so fast, JJ couldn’t comprehend all the voices flooding her mind.

A master at putting out fires and placating the afraid, JJ whispered softly to a frantic Garcia that they were okay. Scratch was one crafty bastard. This was all part of his plan, and at this point, exasperated wasn’t a good enough word for how she felt. As she caught her breath, Emily grabbed her phone to request new cars from SWAT, but again, she was caught off, bright lights blinding her vision and smashing into the car, sending their car into the one filled with their teammates.

The metal of one car against the other screeched around her, but she couldn’t look around to see what was happening. All she could do was close her eyes, and imagine her three boys, the ones she loved more than anything, and how they would fair if she didn’t make it out of this alive.

Her head was knocked sideways, hitting into Emily’s knee as she cried out for her husband. They’ll be okay, she thought to herself. Will and Henry would figure out how to move on…but would Michael even remember her?


	3. Rossi/Before the Crash

“Hey, Dad,” Joy said into the phone, repeating herself when she didn’t get an answer. 

He shook his head. “Sorry,” he replied with a chuckle that he’d only developed after finding out he was a father, as weird as that was. “I’m still getting used to getting called Dad.”

“Really?” she giggled. “It’s been like a year. You’re Dad now. And Grandpa. Speaking of, little man wants to see you. Are you free?”

For Kai? For Kai he was always free. Before meeting Joy and finding out that she was in fact his daughter, he could never have imagined sitting at home and watching television all day, but recently he’d spent the entire day in front of the TV watching someone called Spongebob Squarepants with his grandson and it had been the best day he’d had in a while. “I’m always free for you and Kai.” 

“Except work,” she laughed, knowing how much of his time was taken up by the job he loved so much. “But you’re not there now right?”

Thankfully no. Spencer being in jail when he was actually the least likely to wind up there was weighing heavily on his heart. The fact that he couldn’t do anything for the kid was driving him up a wall. Between that and the cases, which had been extra trying as of late, Rossi was truly starting to feel his age – and he’d never said that before. Ask anyone and he’d tell them that he was going to be an old, ornery Italian well into his 90s, and according to the contract he’d made with the big man upstairs, at least 100. “Nope. Just woke up actually. If you give me a few to get showered, dressed and go buy a cup of coffee, I can come over.” 

“Sounds good,” his daughter said. She reminded him very much of her mother - even in her voice. “And actually, do you mind grabbing me a coffee too and meeting us at the park near our house? Kai wants to play catch with you.”

Having a grandson was just as amazing as everyone said it was. As a young man, David Rossi had never been a homebody. Obviously. That’s why he’d been divorced three times. But the idea that his grandson had asked for him personally and wanted to play catch, well, that warmed his heart in ways he never thought possible. “Absolutely. Tell him grandpa is looking forward to it. Also…has he had breakfast? Can I bring him a donut or a piece of pound cake from the café?” He really did love to spoil that kid. His face! He was so worth it, Rossi just couldn’t help himself.

With a slight chuckle, she told her father that yes, Kai had had breakfast, but if he really wanted to spoil him, he could pick up something that he could eat with lunch, which she was planning on packing and bringing to the park.

After getting cleaned up and picking out some comfortable clothes to play catch in, he went down the street from his house and grabbed two coffees and a handful of scones; he was pretty sure he’d eat one before he even got to the park, and he’d been right.

“Grandpa!” Kai ran toward him from the middle of the park, hands outstretched as he waited to be picked up. “You wanna play catch with me Grandpa?”

“There is absolutely nothing I want to do more, kiddo,” he replied, placing him back down on the grass and walking hand-in-hand toward his beautiful daughter. “Here is your coffee. Some snacks are in the bag. But I actually plans, so I have to go.” Her face dropped, not getting his sense of humor at first.

“Don’t be sad, mommy!” He said. “Grandpa has plans with me! We have to play.”

“Told you,” Rossi said with a smile. “I have great plans that I can’t possibly miss out on.”  
\---

After returning Diana to her son, the team separated out to opposite corners of the office. They’d never really been like this before. After a tragedy, they came together, the love of family overwhelming everything else, but they’d never been through something like this before.

Aaron had to leave to protect his son, which meant Emily stepping in. Rossi truly believed she was doing a wonderful job, but he could tell the younger agent was under a great deal of stress as Reid’s friend, no less everyone’s superior. Not having Morgan here was another blow. Over the years, both Morgan and Reid had become like surrogate sons to him, so having one leave the team (for a great reason, but still) and the other in prison for something he could never have done broke his heart.

As he sat in his office, he heaved a sigh of relief – at least Reid was out of prison. In all honesty, if anyone had asked him, he truthfully wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to last. Prison wasn’t made for people like him. Despite Reid doing anything for the ones he loved, he couldn’t hurt anyone in cold blood and he was crap at physically defending himself. If Rossi had been as worried as he was for Reid, he couldn’t even imagine how he would feel if something like that had happened to Joy or Kai.

Watching Reid get taken away after the arraignment had ripped his heart out. Rossi would have put up his house as collateral if it meant posting bail for Spencer. Looking out the window, he caught sight of the picture frame holding his daughter and grandson out of the corner of his eye. Despite the semi-happy occasion, the look of relief that had washed over him at watching Reid hug his mother again, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

This job was everything to him. He loved it back then and he still loved it now, but he would be lying if he didn’t admit that he’d given his life to it, which at this point in his life seemed like somewhat of a mistake. Because of his dedication to this job, his second ex-wife had decided not tell him of the child they had together. He didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t have been ready to have a child at the time, but he missed out on her entire life. The playing in the park he now did with his grandson was missed out on with his daughter. Her first steps undoubtedly happened when he had been out on a case. She started school without him sending her off. She didn’t grow up with him telling her how proud he was of her. Joy turned out extraordinary anyway; the disappointment wasn’t so much for her, but for himself.

After Scratch was caught, he was going to take that month worth of vacation he’d built up. He hated using it before, always feeling like he could be helping someone or just putting his time to better use. Now, this was his better use. He’d take an entire month off and spend time with Joy, Kai, and his ex, Hayden. They were getting to know each other again, and he wanted more time together. As he spun around in his chair, waiting impatiently for word from Garcia about Scratch’s coordinates, he took a deep breath and attempted to center himself. He’d always considered himself as someone who pushed passed the bad and got things done. He was tough. Italian. He didn’t have any time for that bullshit. But this year had tried him in a way that he’d never expected. Why was he feeling sorry for himself? He had more than most. A beautiful home. A career he loved. And now a beautiful family. But as he closed his eyes he couldn’t help but wonder what might have been different had he not put the job above all else as a younger man.

\---  
As he looked across the room, Hayden’s bright smile lighting up the dimly lit space, he knew he’d made the right decision. He’d helped to found the BAU, so he always wanted to be affiliated with it, but for now, all he wanted was to be here, watching Hayden dancing around the living room and their little girl playing with blocks in the corner. She was nearly nine months old, the spitting image of her mother, and the absolute light of his life. He never expected to love someone so much, but here she was, babbling away in the corner without a care in the world.

“Dadadadadada.”

He lifted his head from the rough copy of his sixth book, which he’d revised as many times in the past few months. Joy had been babbling quite a lot lately, but was that…?

“Dadadadadada.” The baby lifted her hands and looked in her father’s direction. “Dada. Dada. Dada,” she said happily. Hayden brought her hands up to her mouth before pulling out the camera and standing behind her husband.

“Who’s this, Joy?” she asked, pushing slightly on the back of her husband’s shoulder. 

An expert in way of the army crawl, just like her father, Joy crawled across the room and came to stop in front of him, looking up with her mother’s eyes. “Dada.” She lifted her hands up in an effort to get her daddy to lift her, and as the tears stung at the corners of his eyes, he couldn’t help but do exactly that.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said, lifting her above his head and bringing her down to kiss her tiny baby belly. “I am Dada.”

“Dada, dada, dada.”  
\---

A crash brought him out of his daydream, which was probably for the best considering there was no use dwelling on the past. He couldn’t change the decisions he’d made, but occasionally he couldn’t help but let his mind wander – 20/20 hindsight was always perfect, unfortunately. Normally, he would’ve checked where the crash came from, but it was definitely from Emily’s office, and after everything she’d been through, he thought she was allowed to throw a couple of things.

In order to keep his mind occupied, he played a game on his phone, something Kai liked too. He breathed a sigh another sigh of relief when Garcia emerged from the hallway. She’d found something.

Emily slicked back her hair on the way out of her office. As she gave everyone a little pep talk about how tough everything had been but that they still had work to do, Rossi couldn’t help but smile softly. She was a wonderful unit chief – if only Hotch could see her excel, he’d have been so proud.

But he again he was brought out of his own thoughts by more important matters. “We’ve gotta go,” Emily said to him. “This will all be over soon.”

“And then I’m taking a break,” he said with a slight chuckle.

Emily snorted. “You and me both. I think we all need it.”

As they left the Bureau, Emily briefed everyone that SWAT was going to be heading into the house before they did. Knowing Scratch he’d had some elaborate plan laying in wait to trap them. Rossi had dealt with some crafty killers before, but Scratch was definitely a cut above the rest. On rare occasion, he’d broken protocol. He wasn’t necessarily proud of it, but he’d egged on Gideon’s killer because he wanted to kill him, and he had. As they drove on, he wondered if he would do the same to Scratch if given the chance.

Yes. Yes he would. No matter how good someone was they were all capable of unspeakable things.

He imagined Scratch dying and the world being a better place for it just as the tires blew out from under them, sending the car into a tailspin. Stephen steadied the car and immediately turned to him to make sure he was okay. “I’m fine. I’m just so tired of his shit,” he replied.

“You and me both,” Tara responded hotly. There wasn’t a doubt in Rossi’s mind that Tara would kill Scratch if given the chance. While Stephen checked in with Emily through the comms to see what they were going to do now, a pair of lights headed toward them, obstructing his vision. By the time the lights had vanished, they were buried in Emily’s car, which was pushing straight toward them. He pulled on the seatbelt and braced himself for impact, watching as his wallet fell out of his pocket and onto the floor. It held one of the few pictures he had of his grandson, and although he was holding on to the seatbelt for safety, he was tempted to reach for the picture.

He’d missed out on so much. As the cars collided, he just prayed he didn’t miss any more.


	4. Tara/Before the Crash

Sure, she hadn’t expected to work as a profiler with the BAU - she was a forensic psychologist through and through, examining the minds of the criminal in the relative safety of four walls and not out in the field, but she’d made the decision and now she was in deep; she wanted this bastard’s head mounted on her wall.

They really weren’t supposed to take work home with them. Occasionally Emily did, but that’s because she was the Unit Chief. A profiler was supposed to leave at the end of the day. But she was never one to leave her work at work. After all, her former job entailed her getting up close and personal with some of sickest minds ever created in order to figure out whether or not they were mentally-equipped enough to stand trial. She always took that with her, so why wouldn’t she take this work home with her. 

She’d gotten close to this team. They’d become as much her family as her own had been – sometimes even more so. But while her relationship with her father and brother had been strained and nearly broken over the years, when Scratch came after them, he made it personal.

One thing you had to know about Dr. Tara Elizabeth Lewis – she did not take personal very well.

File after file after file was laid out in front of her on the floor. The coffee pot had practically broken from how much she’d been using it. She’d been abusing caffeine so much that it had actually stopped having the effect she wanted, but still, she wore on, night after night, coffee cup after coffee cup, flipping through the pages and praying she’d stumble across something that would help the team catch this bastard. 

But nothing.

“Goddammit!” she screamed, throwing a file across the room in rage. As the papers flew from her grasp, falling back to the floor with the delicacy of snowflakes on a calm day, she combed her fingers through her hair feeling anything but calm.

The papers were still in the process of floating to the floor as she flashed back to that day – the day that Scratch had made it personal for her. Maybe he didn’t know it, but it was the same day that he’d painted a target on his own back – one that Tara would without fail be aiming for if she had the chance. 

She sat across the table from her “brother,” but this wasn’t him. He kept insisting it was; he even had certain memories to back it up. He had knowledge of things he shouldn’t have had had he not been her brother. 

He had the memories, but no matter he claimed he was not her brother.

“You’re not my brother,” she said to the strange man across from her. He didn’t look a damn thing like what she’d imagined after all these years, but he was saying all the right things. She could tell it wasn’t him, which was confirmed when her father had been brought in. 

The man looked more than offended, but he just kept on insisting. “How can you say that, T?” They went back and forth, him insisting they were related and her knowing they weren’t. 

When she left the room, her father confirmed what she already knew – that wasn’t his son. But what she hadn’t known was that Gabriel had been in town for about a month for another “business opportunity” – the kind that never worked out for him. He’d gotten a 1600 on his SATs and earned a full-ride to Yale, only to turn it down in favor of these get-rich quick schemes. His partner in this endeavor…one Carl Brubaker, who bore an uncanny resemblance to the man claiming their connection.

After digging and searching and scrounging for information, they’d found their answer – at least a piece of it.

Scratch was involved. 

And he was involved in Spencer’s prison stay. Or at least they had assumed so, until finding out it was Cat Adams – that crafty bitch they’d outsmarted the year prior. As she watched Spencer walk down the hall arm-in-arm with his mother, she wondered whether or not the BAU had a curse on them. Who had they pissed off to have such a curse rain down on them?

Not only had they yet to recapture Scratch, but then this woman, nearly equally as crafty, comes out of the woodwork to seek revenge on Spencer. Maybe it was her job as a psychologist that limited her – in that she took on one “client” at a time. Here – well, here there was no limit to how many sick bastards could crawl out of the woodwork like termites. One, two, twelve – it didn’t matter.

With Spencer and his mother safe and sound, the rest of them headed for Emily’s office, where Morgan had shown up. Before he left the BAU for his family, she’d gotten to know him well enough. Well enough to know that if he were truly here just to catch up he’d be smiling. But he wasn’t. Through his intermittent smiles, Tara could see the uncertainty. 

“We may have a bigger problem,” Morgan said. Without anything else, Tara knew that had to mean Scratch was behind Morgan’s arrival at the Bureau. He went through his suspicions as she stood in the background, stomping her foot slightly on the ground as she leaned into the wall. Apparently, he’d gotten a message from Garcia, but as best friends, he knew it wasn’t from her and had assumed it was Scratch. After all this with Spencer, when they had finally gotten some decent news and sent their friend off with his alive and lucid-for-now mother, they had to go after this bastard. 

Tara didn’t regret taking this job. She excelled as a psychologist, but she was never the type to limit herself, so taking this on as a consultant was good for her, but she hated being three steps behind the eight ball. 

She exited the room, nearly throwing a stack of papers off of Emily’s desk in the process and returned to her desk. Feeling a bit like a toddler who wasn’t getting what she wanted, she began to kick at her desk. The only thing that allayed her feelings of immaturity was the fact that Scratch was a motherfucking bastard who’d tortured the rest of the team and her own family that they just couldn’t seem to catch. She was allowed to be at least a little angry with that if not completely enraged.

After finding that the numbers 11, 15 and 32 that had been left on pictures of her brother actually meant the Gospel of Luke chapter 15 versus 11-32, the team had snaked through the maze of riddles and tricks and traps that Scratch had laid out for them and had finally entered the warehouse where Tara’s actual brother Gabriel was being kept.

On the first floor of the warehouse, JJ and Spencer had found a power source, but they couldn’t touch it for fear of setting a trap off, and while they were downstairs, she, Emily and Luke finally came upon her brother, trapped in Scratch’s vise with their father’s gun pointed at his head. She may have had a strained relationship with her brother, and he a strained relationship with their father, but that didn’t mean he deserved to die, especially not by their father’s own gun.

The trap he was ensnared in couldn’t be removed without the gun firing, and without any thought Tara launched herself between her brother and the gun, but when she looked down…the gun wasn’t even loaded.

It’s a decoy.

Another message. Exodus 8:24. The plagues and a dense swarm of flies. Hesitantly, their gazes find their way to the ceiling. Nail guns.

In an instant, Emily, Luke, Tara and Gabriel managed to barely escape the onslaught of nails that sped down like sheets of rain. They were okay. He was okay. She leaned into her brother, telling him it would be okay and that she wasn’t going to let anything happen to him, but she couldn’t actually say that with certainty. Scratch was still out there.

He’d been painting targets on the backs of the BAU. Now Scratch had one on his.

By the time Tara came out of her reverie they were already in the cars on the way to Scratch’s supposed location. SWAT would be heading in beforehand to disable any traps like the storm of nails before the BAU headed inside. 

Finally, Tara started to feel like they were close. Scratch was right here. Right under their noses.

Whoosh! 

As the tires blew out and sent the cars spinning, Tara felt the rage rise up within her body again. This was him. If there was doubt before, there wasn’t anymore. Scratch was behind this. 

“Spike strips? Really?” she yelled out as the cars both screeched to a stop, trying her best to remain calm while the rest of the team tried to assuage Garcia’s fears. Emily told them to remain focused. They were going to get this bastard. Right after Emily told them she was about to call for another set of cars to get back on Scratch’s path, a burning bright light, or was it two, headed straight for Emily, JJ and Luke’s car. It was a truck.

This was all planned. 

The crushing sound of metal shivered up her spine; she remained frozen in place, unable to take her eyes off the vehicle as it sent the other members of the BAU straight into their car.

When it collided, she only thought one thing. If she was lucky enough to make it out of this alive, and they found Scratch, he was dead – whether it ended her career or not.


	5. Stephen/Before the Crash

“Dad?”

Stephen turned around and had to use his best poker face to hide from his son how he was feeling. As he looked up at Monica, he could tell she saw right past the mask. “What’s up Eli?”

“Do you have to go again?” Law enforcement life had been his drive for most of his life, but as he got older, he couldn’t help but feel like he was missing out on his kids’ lives and forgoing time with his wife to help catch killers. They would continue to plague the earth anyway – and he was missing the three people he loved most. And at this point in time, both of his children were old enough to feel the effects too. “I don’t want you to go.” 

Stephen sighed, feeling his heart rip open at hearing his 9-year-old son actually ask him to stay. “I know you don’t, buddy,” he said, his smooth baritone somehow calming everyone despite the fact they were so tired of all of this. It had been one thing for Stephen to repay a debt to Emily and help to catch Scratch, and he’d known they’d have some other cases, but the flow was constant, and the recent BAU transfer was rarely home anymore. “But there are bad guys out there, some of whom wanna hurt and are hurting my friends. I have to go help catch them to keep you all safe.” It was the same excuse he always used. For years, it hadn’t necessarily been an excuse, just a fact, but now that his kids were older, entering and in their formative years, it was hard to hear the words as a hollow excuse.

“I’m promise I’ll come home safe though,” he said, standing up again and giving his son a kiss on the forehead before attempting to do the same for his wife and daughter. While Monica never skipped out on the chance for more time with her husband, Maya was 14. A teenager under normal circumstances became distant from their parents, but with a father in law enforcement, Maya had nearly alienated herself from him completely, pulling away as he tried to give her a kiss goodbye. Monica looked her daughter’s way, saddened by everything that had been happening recently, but she also couldn’t force Maya to be happy when she wasn’t. She mouthed an “I’m sorry” as Stephen walked out the door.

Work had been his life for more than two decades, and he was proud of the work he’d done, but perhaps it was time for him to rethink the direction of his life…lest both his children forget who their father really was.

Seeing Spencer embrace his mother brought a tear to his eye. And it made him think. It made him think about what he was missing with his own family. He hadn’t been here long, and he’d been able to get acquainted with Spencer even less so – barely at all, but he could tell by his embrace with his mother that she was the most important person in the world to him. The two clutched onto each other as if their lives depended on it, and he felt himself subconsciously reaching out for his own family.

Emily made sure their transfer to the safe house had gone through, allowing the grateful mother and son to sleep soundly for the night. When the team turned back to head into the office, Stephen saw a man he didn’t know standing in the office, but everyone else reacted. That must’ve been Derek Morgan. He didn’t know him, and the rest of the team seemed to be gearing up for a reunion, so he stayed behind to allow them to catch up with their friend; he’d join them in a moment.

After a round of hugs and smiles, he entered, hearing the tail end of a conversation. “A lead on Scratch?”

“Yes,” Emily replied. “Garcia is going to run the coordinates from Morgan’s phone. That’s where he’ll be. We find him and then we can all go home and get some much needed and even more deserved rest.”

“Yes, please,” he said, the idea making his voice seem a little lighter. He was tired. He did want to go home. But right now he was needed here. All he could do was give 100 percent at home and 100 percent at work and hope that things worked out the way he intended. At least he knew that everyone here cared. They took a new member in like family, which was instantly confirmed when Garcia ran her hand over his arm on the way out of the room.

The jovial nature that had filled the room at the arrival of an old friend quickly turned to one of overwhelming silence. More sound could be heard in the dead of night – of that he was sure. Everyone separated, needing moments alone after the hell they’d gone through. Spencer had it the worst, but they’d all had to sit by and watch, and it had bothered him, so he couldn’t imagine how much it had hurt everyone else. The deeper the connection the more harsh the pain.

“What happened?” he asked frantically as he barged his way into his daughter’s hospital room. She was sitting up in bed with a couple of bruises and some cuts and scrapes, but all in all, she was okay. Stephen’s heart finally started to beat again. The second his wife had called to say that Maya had been involved in a minor car accident with a friend, he’d held his breath, praying to God that his little girl was okay Thankfully, they’d just gotten back from a case, so he rushed over. “How the hell did this happen?”

“I was with Samantha and her older sister,” Maya said defensively. “They’re okay too by the way.”

“Maya!” Monica said sharply, cutting her eyes at her daughter. It was the look that told her kids they were about to cross a line and to stop while they were ahead. “Apparently, the light at the intersection was broken on one side so when they were going through the green light, the lane in the intersection also had a green light so the car got t-boned.”

“Oh baby,” he said, walking up to her bedside and taking her face in his hands. He was careful not to aggravate the bruise on the side of her face. “I’m so glad you’re all okay. You had me worried sick.” He couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened to his heart had his daughter been badly injured. It just felt like his heart was being released from the vice, so if circumstances had been different, he imagined his heart would’ve been crushed into a million little pieces. “Do you get to leave soon?” He knew how much she hated being confined, especially now that she was a teenager and always out with friends.

Maya nodded her head, pursing her lips in that way that told him she didn’t want to talk to him. “Yea, I do. I know that’s important to you.”

Again, Monica cut her eyes at her daughter. “Hey baby,” she said, giving her husband a peck on the cheek. “You mind giving me a second alone with her? Then we can both go figure out paperwork.” He wanted to hesitate – find a way to convince his daughter that he only wanted the best for her, but Monica was right. Maya was dangerously close to overstepping the few boundaries they’d set for her and she needed to have some sense talked into her.

That didn’t make it hurt any less hearing what his baby girl thought of him from outside the door. “He doesn’t even care!” Maya hissed.

“Are you out of your damn mind?” Monique retorted. “Your father loves you both more than anything in this world.”

“Really? Because he’s away so often I’m starting to wonder if he knows anything about us anymore. Like what my new favorite movie is, or that Eli wants to start taking violin lessons. How can someone care when they know nothing about you?” He could hear the strain in her voice and it killed him. In a way she was right. He had no idea what her favorite movie was anymore. It used to be Aladdin. And he had no idea that Eli wanted to start taking violin lessons. The thought made him smile, considering how much he loved to play the trombone. Even if he was away, he needed to make more of an effort to connect with his kids.

“Just because he’s away doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care,” Monica said hotly. “This is what your father does. I know it’s hard. It’s hard on me too, but it doesn’t give you the right to be so disrespectful. We put very few restraints on you, but being respectful is one thing I insist on, so when your father comes in here again, I don’t want to hear any of that sarcastic bullshit.”

Maya knew better than to test her. Her mother didn’t curse often, so when she did, it was a big deal. “Now I’m going to go outside and figure out paperwork. You sit here and think about how rude you’ve been. I don’t want to hear it again.”

“I’m so sorry,” Monica said as she came out of the room. “She’s completely out of line and I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

“She’s a teenager,” he said, chuckling softly under his breath. “Do you think I should quit?” It wasn’t a sentiment he imagined coming out the way it did, but it happened nonetheless.

Monica’s mouth dropped open, and then she said what he knew she’d say, because she knew him better than anyone else in the world. “Stephen, you would never forgive yourself if you left before catching this Scratch bastard. Do that first, do your best to keep in touch with the kids when you’re home, and when you’ve caught this man, we can talk about what you want to do. I don’t want you to miss out on our babies’ lives, but I also don’t want to force you to give up a job you love.”

With a soft smile, he grabbed his wife’s hands and brought them up to his face to place kisses on each one. “I love you. Thank you.”

After Garcia had come back with the coordinates they needed, Emily gathered everyone, including Morgan into the round table room. She gave them all a much-needed pep talk. With everything else that had gone down, every last one of them was on their last reserves of energy, but that, combined with Morgan’s faith in team members old and new had all of them uplifted and ready to catch this bastard once and for all.

“You ready for this?” Tara asked as they followed the rest of the team onto the elevator. “I want this guy dead.”

“Me too,” he said. But he knew he’d take him in if given the chance. Tara he wasn’t so sure about. He paused momentarily so that Emily could brief them on what they’d be doing once they got to the coordinates Garcia had provided. “I just want to go home and spend so time with my kids.”

“You will.” Tara placed her hand softly on his arm. “Once this is done, you can go home.” She said it as if she knew he was considering leaving the BAU. He was about to ask her, but they were already in the car and his mind wandered off to other things.

While Emily continued to brief everyone through the comms on the way, he took the wheel; he always felt more comfortable in the driver’s seat. As they turned a corner, the cars having gone silent after Emily’s briefing, something caused the tires to blow. Stephen knew that sound. Those were spike strips. He did what he could to steady the car, panicking as it came to a screeching halt. “You okay?” he asked Rossi and Tara. They were both fine, just shaken and pissed off.

Since everyone was fine and the comms were still intact, Stephen decided to check in with Emily and see what they were supposed to do next. Problem was, the second he turned back to the front seat, a set of lights caught his eye, and they were heading straight toward them – Luke, JJ and Emily’s car specifically.

All he could do was watch in horror as an 18-wheeler struck them in the side, just like his daughter’s accident, sending the car straight into him. As he braced himself, he swore he’d fight. His family was everything – and they were waiting for him.


	6. Luke/Before the Crash

This wasn’t the turn he’d expected his life to take. He’d been a fugitive task force agent, not a profiler, but the BAU asked for his help when 13 serial killers escaped from prison. Eight had been recaptured when Rossi asked in passing how he felt about joining the BAU. “I’m not a profiler.” That’s what he remembered saying, although now his mind was so jarred and discombobulated, he couldn’t be sure of much anymore.

But then he’d said that by becoming a member of the BAU, Luke could have a first-hand seat in the recapture of Daniel Cullen, a killer who had tortured one of his best friends, his former partner Phil, so he’d accepted. Had it really been less than a year since he’d joined? Since he’d become so close with these people he never expected to love the way he did? That he’d been struggling with unspoken words?

Four of the serial killers who’d escaped were still at large, but in the weeks after his acceptance to the team, so much more happened. His life and identity had been in turmoil, thrown around like debris in a storm, but he’d become an expert at compartmentalization, and his mind was needed somewhere else, so all that he had been feeling was pushed back until now, watching as Reid and his mother were sent off to the safe house for the night.

\---  
“Dr. Reid,” he said as he walked into the round table room to introduce himself. Apparently, the BAU’s youngest agent had taken a bit of personal leave to take care of his mother, but he’d just returned. “I know you don’t shake hands. Your reputation precedes you.” 

“And yours,” Reid had replied with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

That’s how it had started – that brief exchange had brought him down the rabbit hole of feelings that he didn’t know how to express. Luke’s family had never been truly close – cordial with each other, but not close. He had a sister and a brother, both younger and both off doing their own things, and his parents divorced so many years ago he couldn’t remember a time when they’d been in the same room. More importantly, as the oldest, he’d had a set of expectations set upon his shoulders, and none of them involved developing feelings for a man. 

Reid was unlike anyone else, which he knew before he started (as he said the doctor’s reputation did, in fact, precede him), but meeting him face-to-face brought Luke a deeper appreciation for the genius’s eccentricities. When he spoke about anything in terms of statistics and facts, his face lit up, and there was something about the look in his eyes, the way he smiled, and the way he got lost in his words that made Luke look at him the way he’d looked at only one other man in his life; that man had died. And if he was honest with himself, he was afraid to feel that deeply for someone ever again.  
\---

The relief that had washed over him as he watched Reid hug his mother again was unlike anything he had ever felt. Reid may not have known what was in Luke’s mind – why he’d gone to the mat for him and pulled out all the stops when it came to that bastard, Calvin Shaw, but Luke knew how he felt. Since Reid had been put away, Luke promised himself that when Reid was released - when, not if – he would tell him how he felt.

But it also wouldn’t be fair to Reid to dump that on him at a time like this, so for now, Reid would take care of his mother, and once he’d had a bit of time to decompress from the tumble-dry setting his life had been on, Luke would tell him about how he felt and hope for the best. Until then, he needed to process his own bullshit, so he sat down at his desk, twisting his pen absentmindedly in his hand as the rest of the team went to meet with former SSA Morgan, who’d stopped by for a reason of which he wasn’t sure.

\---  
Great. Emily knew. Emily had to know. That’s why she’d given him a small smile when she paired them up for this case. She’d purposely set them up because they had to interview a sex shop owner. If he was ever comfortable enough to come out, he was going to have to kill Emily for this. The entire time they were in the store, he’d done his best to act professional, but it was difficult when feelings went unspoken and your co-worker looked like Dr. Reid.

After obtaining what little information they could from the cashier, they’d left and hopped into the car. Reid was spouting statistics and facts about BDSM. Luke desperately wanted to tell him to stop, because it was not making it easy to work with him, but that would require him to tell Reid that he had feelings for him and he just wasn’t ready for that. He’d barely admitted to himself that he was bisexual – to say something would mean others would know, and he wasn’t sure he was able to handle that just yet. But dammit if he couldn’t listen to him talk all day.

“It’s obvious our unsub is into the riskier side of things,” Reid said as he pulled on his seatbelt, “But the really risky stuff is far less common than people think.” After putting on his seatbelt, Reid turned toward Luke, his one leg resting up on the car seat. That was one of the things he loved about Reid; when he was speaking, he gave his full attention to the one he was talking to – like he was trying to infuse his passion for facts into whomever he was speaking. “For instance, only 13% of people surveyed in a recent study were into using knives, 17% were into suffocation games, which are also known as breath play, and piercing is only enjoyed by 21% of the BDSM population. More often than not, people that are involved in this kind of lifestyle are ordinary people trying to spice up their sex lives.”

Luke kept his eyes plastered forward toward the road, fearing that if he turned to Reid for even a second, the younger man would easily be able to tell that he had feelings for him. Reid really wasn’t making this easy.  
\---

As he sat at his desk, Luke kept going back and forth with whether or not to tell Reid how he felt. Granted his mother had been returned to his safely, but she was still suffering from Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia, which forever weighed heavily on his mind, but he also just barely survived three months in prison. For fucks sake, he’d had to stab himself to get into solitary confinement. If they’d taken any longer in freeing him, Reid no doubt would’ve died in there.

Luke hung his head in his hands, watching as Garcia ran past him toward her office. “What’s happening?” he asked.

“We might have a lead on Scratch,” she said angrily, her eyes peering down the hallway toward her office. “I’m going to track him now.”

Great. They hadn’t had enough? Reid just got out of prison. He’d just saved his mother. They’d just outsmarted Cat, who Reid apparently had to deal with just last year. Did Scratch really need to come out of the woodwork again now? Of course, he did. Scratch was the master of psychological torture. The physical was just a way to bring out the psychological, because for most people, that meant so much more than physical pain - Calvin Shaw, for instance.

\---  
“I’ll get my personal effects back soon,” Shaw shrugged. He really did think he owned the place; he thought he’d struck the perfect balance of prisoner and disgraced FBI agent, but he’d fucked with Dr. Reid, and although Luke hadn’t admitted his feelings, he pulled all the strings to make sure this condescending fuck would live in the fear he’d caused Reid. 

“Sure,” Luke said, smirking at the self-admitted guilty man with mirrored condescension. “You’ll get your personal effects back before your transfer.”

Immediately, the prisoner’s face dropped. “Transfer?” 

“Oh, you didn’t know?” he asked. Watching Shaw’s mind run a mile a minute was a joy he couldn’t even begin to describe. “You’re going to be transferred to the Michigan State Penitentiary. Your Russian friends are excited to see you.”

“You can’t do that,” Shaw said defensively. But Luke could, and Shaw had fucked with the wrong person when he’d set his sights on Reid. He knew everything about Shaw; the informant he killed hadn’t endangered their operation, Shaw fell for her, got her pregnant and had to keep the secret from his own pregnant wife, so shot Elena Olegnova and attempted to ensure no one would find out about the baby by shooting her in the uterus. Luke dug and dug and dug, successfully getting under Shaw’s skin. The joy he felt at screwing him over was unmatched. 

Luke looked around, taking in the guards ripping apart Shaw’s cell. “But I can, and I have. You’ll be transferred within the next 12 hours.” He started to leave, wanting to leave Shaw in the worst emotional state, but he stopped and stepped back. “Oh, and the Michigan State Penitentiary has much stricter visitation policies, which means you won’t be seeing your son much anymore.”

That poor child was better off without his father anyway.  
\---

Luke had been so lost in his own thoughts that he snapped to attention when Emily patted him on the shoulder in the conference room. He didn’t even remember walking in there; he was so distracted. “We have a lead.” He took a deep breath and stood up, following Emily to the elevator as she began to brief the team. “And Reid’s okay.” She spoke softly, but Luke’s head snapped toward her as he silently nodded. 

“Now this could be a trap,” she spoke as the group of them got into two separate cars. “SWAT is going to be going in ahead of us to disable any traps they can find.”

“Honestly, with everything that’s happened, I expect Scratch is going to have more traps set than we can even imagine,” Luke said under his breath. Emily gave him a look that said she agreed as he took the wheel and started to drive.

After she finished briefing everyone, the cars went silent. Everyone was too tired to say much. In an instant, they were all brought out of their daydreams by a rushing of air and a bump in the road. The cars started to skid along the road. Luke steadied it as quickly as he could, but not before his midsection was thrown into the wheel, knocking the wind right out of him. 

He leaned back in the seat while Emily checked on everyone to make they were unharmed, while simultaneously trying to calm Garcia who was in the midst of freaking out alone in her office. 

They needed new cars to get to Scratch, so Luke watched as Emily reached into her pocket for her phone, shielding his eyes as two blinding lights barreled toward them. There was a truck headed right toward them. Luke put pressure on his side where he’d smacked into the wheel in an attempt to avoid any further harm, but as the truck collided with their car, they were sent straight into Stephen, Tara and Rossi’s car. All he could think was to praise whatever deities existed for Reid not being in the car right now; if Luke got out of this, he had to tell him.


	7. Penelope/Before the Crash

Lost didn’t even begin to describe it. 

“This is what I’ll do,” she mumbled to herself, walking frenetically around her apartment with poster board, glue, scissors and glitter in her hands. Everything had fallen from her grasp at one point, but she just picked them up, mumbling over and over again that this is what she was good at. “I can help everyone else through this.”

Reid was going to be in prison for the foreseeable future. NO! No, he wasn’t. Because he didn’t do anything wrong and Emily’s friend Fiona was a great lawyer and they were all going to get him out of this. This was Reid. Of course he would be fine. He’d gone through so much in his still short life and come through it with the same beautiful innocence that had drawn her to him in the first place. “He’ll be fine. He’ll be okay.”

But everyone was losing it. They may not have said it, but everyone was panicking inside, desperate for some kind of information to randomly pop that proved that Reid didn’t do this. “We all wanna see him,” she said, still talking to herself as she put all of the materials down on the table and began drawing up a chart. “But we can only go one at a time, so I will make a schedule so that everyone gets to go and Reid doesn’t have to be alone. Because he needs to know that. He needs to know that he’s not alone.”

First on the list would be her of course. She was the one making the chart, and she was the one who would burst into a million little pieces if she didn’t get to see him soon. “Me first.” 

One by one, she drew out names, ensuring the names were full of sparkle and life and personality because that’s what everyone needed right now. They needed something to distract them from the craziness. “Yea, I’m really good at that,” she mumbled. “I’m good at helping. I can make people feel good. That’s what they need right now.”

As her fingers flew over the poster board, the colors and names coming to life before her eyes, her vision started to blur. When she wiped at her eyes with the back of her arm, she saw tears staining her skin. “It’s okay,” she whispered to herself. She felt her eyes well up again. “I’m fine.” She repeated it to herself like a manta, over and over and over again, but she has to stop as the tears hit the poster, smudging the beautiful work she’d done to the point where it looked like garbage.

As she sobbed, she ripped up the poster into a thousand tiny pieces, throwing them all in the trash before looking down at her hands. The glitter was stuck to her. All over. She stepped over to the sink, rubbing at her eyes with the backs of her arms repeatedly, trying to keep the tears at bay. While the warm water ran over her hands, she kept repeating to herself. “I’m fine. It’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna be okay.” 

\---

This was it. He was coming out. Any second now she was going to see her beautiful Boy Wonder walk out those doors. He was coming home. Just hours before she’d told Emily she’d quit if anything else happened to Reid. Him having to stab himself to get into solitary confinement was bad enough. If anything else happened? If he’d died? She wouldn’t have been able to walk into the Bureau the same way again. Life as she’d known it would’ve been over.

But Emily, her all-knowing, all-powerful brunette-beauty-turned-Unit-Chief-and-still-beautiful-brunette had put her ass on the line and now Reid was coming home. God, she couldn’t imagine how Reid felt right now, because she felt amazing. Well, mostly amazing, coupled with a little bit of ‘I wanna throw up.’ But if she felt like that, she couldn’t imagine the cascade of emotions that must be rolling through him right now. JJ had gone inside to get him, so she was standing her with newbie; she was pretty sure she knew why he was so insistent on coming to Reid’s release, but even she couldn’t muster up enough energy to ask him to confirm her suspicions. She would later, when this was truly all over. Right now, they still had Cat to apprehend. 

“There he is,” she said excitedly, slapping newbie on the shoulder. “He’s here. He’s okay. Oh my god, he’s okay.” As JJ walked out, her face red from crying and a smile on her face, Reid came out from behind her. He had some stubble. His hair was wild. But he was alive. When she locked eyes with Reid, her lip started to quiver. She reached up, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his head into her shoulder. Reid gave the best hugs; she’d missed his hugs. He sniffled against her hair and squeezed tightly. She’d never been so happy to have the breath squeezed out of her. They still needed to get his mother back, and even then, he had a long way to go. But this was a step in the right direction. “You’re gonna be okay,” she whispered, grabbing the back of his head through a mess of wild, brown curls. “You’re not alone. You’re gonna be okay.” 

There was a time – not too long ago in fact – that she was sure that was a lie. 

\---

“Hello, my sweet Boy Wonder,” she said, waving wildly as Spencer came out with the inmates and sat across from her. She wanted desperately to get up and hug him, and he could sense it.

“Don’t try and hug me,” he said sadly. “They’ll yell at you.”

Her face dropped momentarily, but she forced herself to smile. “How are you feeling?” God, that was a stupid question. But yet she couldn’t help but ask it. What did you ask someone at a time like this?

“I’m about as okay as can be expected,” Reid replied, forcing a laugh. The Boy Wonder she knew was always looking around – not necessarily at people, but at the world around him, trying to learn everything he possibly could in a way to understand it better. But the man in front of her was looking down, broken, dejected, unable to meet her gaze for more than a few seconds without tearing up. “I’m okay, Penelope. I just have to keep my head down in here to survive.”

Her heart absolutely broke for him. Reid never called her Penelope. He was like her. He wasn’t mean to be in here. He was desperate to help his mother and didn’t think. That’s how you knew Reid was desperate; he was always thinking. But they had to get him out of here. His eyes were sunken. His hair was unruly (not that it was ever really tame, but it was worse). His skin looked pale. There were fading bruises on his face from the beating he’d taken a few weeks ago that nearly gave her a heart attack. It was too much – and he wasn’t going to be able to take it much longer.

She couldn’t let him see that though. She was the helper. She had a duty to make everyone feel better. “We’re going to get you out of here,” she said, reaching across the expanse between them and gently touching his hand behind the partition where the guards couldn’t see. “I swear. We are not going to stop until we get you out of here. You’re going to come home.”

“Time’s up!”

The guard’s deep and piercing voice rang through them both, causing them to jump in their seats. That wasn’t enough time. She had a duty. She had a duty to make him believe that they were going to get him out of here alive. “You hear me, 187? We are not going to stop until you come home to us.”

“I know, Penelope,” he said, his eyes resting on hers for only a moment before he was called again to return to his cell. “I love you.”

As he was taken away, she mouthed back to him. “I love you, too, Sweet Boy.”

\---

If she was an agent, the kick down doors kind like Chocolate Thunder, she would…she would…who was she kidding? She would ask Cat why she was such a horrible human being and try to get through to her. That aside, she prayed that Reid was okay facing her again after what he’d just been through. He was Reid, of course he was going to outsmart her; that’s what he did for a living, he outsmarted them all. But he had been in such a fragile state that when they got back to the Bureau, she was hesitant to let go of his hand. 

But he’d had a job to do.

“Garcia?” Emily addressed through the phone. “Diana is safe. We’re coming home.” Tears had never flooded her eyes so quickly. “Did you hear me, Penelope?”

“Yes,” she sobbed, her hand slapping against her mouth. “Yes, I heard you. Bring him back for good.” Emily hung up the phone, leaving Garcia to cry a river of tears as she awaited her loves’ safe return. This was over. They could all finally begin to heal. After all this time, maybe all of them could get a good night’s sleep. It had been months since she slept more than a few hours at a clip.

It finally felt appropriate to plaster her computer screens with furry kittens, baby hippos and fuzzy ducklings. Couple that with Reid and Diana’s safe return, and her heart could not have been more full. She pulled out her compact and wiped away the tears, rambling happily to herself as she fixed her makeup and got ready to take in the beauty that was Reid’s reunion with his mother. Emily, Luke, Stephen Rossi and Tara had just returned with Diana. She was on the quiet side. Garcia wasn’t sure if she was truly lucid, but she prayed she would be, for Spencer’s sake as well as her own. 

The ding of the elevator alerted the team that Reid and JJ were back. For a moment, he just stood there. “Diana,” Emily said, leaning into Reid’s mom, “Spencer is here.” Tentatively, she looked up, a look of confusion flashing across her eyes before she extended her arms.

“Hi, Mom.”

As Spencer buried his head into his mother’s neck, Garcia leaned into Emily, her eyes again filling up. “Let’s leave them be.”

With Reid and Diana off to a safe house for the night, the rest of the team turned back toward the bullpen. “Agent Prentiss,” another agent said as he stepped in front of Emily. “There’s someone in your office waiting to see you.”

Garcia waited with bated breath as Emily walked off. She hoped that there wasn’t anything else pressing for the night because everyone had had enough, but a few minutes later, she opened the door with a smile and ushered everyone inside. “Baby girl,” he said - his voice as smooth as chocolate. “You know how much I’ve missed you.”

“Not more than I’ve missed you,” she whispered, coming home in his strong and muscle-y embrace. He took the phone from Emily’s extended hand, showing her the message that claimed to be from her. “That’s not me.”

He knew that. There’s no way a text message from Baby Girl to Chocolate Thunder would be so plain and simple. “Scratch,” she said knowingly. 

“That’s what we think. I need you to track the coordinates,” Emily replied. As Morgan left the room, catching up with the rest of the team and introducing himself to the new recruits, Garcia and Emily exchanged a few words; they were all so much stronger than they gave themselves credit for. 

More quickly than a speeding bullet, Garcia ran into her office and tracked down the coordinates on the man who was undoubtedly Scratch. “Oh no you don’t,” she said. He was good. He was really good. But whether he wanted to admit it or not, when it came to hacking, she was better. “Got you.” 

She ran back outside and handed Emily the slip of paper. After a short pep talk from Emily, everyone began to file out, leaving Garcia alone again. But she wasn’t alone. She turned around and walked outside. The statuesque beauty that was Morgan was outside. They got to talking about Hank – he was starting to waddle walk, which was honestly beyond Garcia’s imagination because it felt like just yesterday that he was a squirmy, beautiful bundle. Now he had sea legs and was walking around on his own – with Daddy’s help, but still. “I’m gonna go bring Reid and his mom some breakfast,” he said as the conversation died down. “I love you, Baby Girl.” His roughened palm rested on the side of her cheek. She didn’t want him to go yet. “Always.” 

As he turned around, she couldn’t help what came out of her mouth. “Oh, I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.”

She waited for a second until he rounded the corner and then made her way back to her office, turning on the comms and sitting down. They were on the road and in the middle of a briefing. Suddenly, she heard a sharp popping sound and the gasps of her teammates. She screeched so loudly she heard feedback from the comms. “Is everyone okay?” she asked in horror.

“We’re good, Garcia.”

“Do you want me to call in reinforcements?”

Emily sighed, “I’ve got it, Garcia.” Again, a sharp sound broke through her fear, but this time it was the screeching of metal against metal rather than the popping of a tire. “What’s happening?” she cried. She stood up from her desk in a panic, angry beyond belief that she was sitting here doing nothing, while god knows what was happening out there. “What’s happening? Is everyone okay?”

Nothing.

“Emily!” 

“Jayge!”

“Newbie!”

“Can anyone hear me?!”


	8. Derek/Before the Crash

He was where he needed to be…right?

There wasn’t a day his mind wasn’t with the Bureau or his heart with his team, but the other two pieces of his heart were right here – his beautiful wife inside their bedroom sick, and their son, little Hank Spencer, just over a year old, who was desperately trying to walk all by himself. He could barely get a step in before he toppled over, but that didn’t keep him from trying it over and over again – sometimes with Daddy’s and Mommy’s help.

“Come on, little man. You can do it,” he said, softly clapping his hands as he sat with his legs crossed across the room from his son. “You got this. You got this.”

Again, Hank pulled himself up by the edge of the table, making the same grunt-y face that he did when he was lifting weights. Hank really was the spitting image of him.

As he stood from his crouched position on the floor, Hank fell down, the diaper squishing under butt with a loud sploosh. “Ok, my man,” he said, bending down and scooping Hank up off the floor. “I think somebody might be smelly.” He brought Hank’s bottom up near his nose and immediately recoiled; how could someone so cute smell so awful? “You’re definitely smelly. It’s a good thing you’re cute.” 

Carefully and quietly so as to not wake Savannah, Derek tiptoed into the room to grab the diaper and wipes he’d need so he could take Hank somewhere else to be changed. “Alright, let’s go,” he whispered. He put his finger up to his lips to keep Hank quiet. Savannah had a killer migraine and when he’d asked how he could help, she said take care of absolutely everything so she could sleep. Of course he’d agreed, but the changing table was in their room, so he needed to enter and exit quietly. He chuckled to himself when he ingress and egress in his head – Bureau/law enforcement terms, not a Dad one.

Once he’d finished changing what was possibly the smelliest diaper known to all of mankind, he put Hank in the fenced-off play area they had for him so that he could do some dishes and laundry. Last thing he wanted for Savannah to do after waking up was have to catch up on household chores. Plus, since he only consulted for local law enforcement now, he was home much more often. It was how he’d planned. After losing his own father at a young age, he was determined that if he ever had kids, he was going to play an active role in their lives, no matter what it took. 

And it was not an easy decision.

When someone worked for the Bureau as long as he had, and with the same people no less, those people and that job became a big part of who you were, and the people worked their way into your heart. That could not have been truer for him, but he had made the best choice he could given that he was now a father on top of being a forensic profiler to his core.

Still, it didn’t mean he didn’t miss his team every single day, specifically his Baby Girl and Pretty Boy. 

He finished the dishes and turned around, checking on his son in the playpen before going to do some laundry. Reid was his son’s namesake, at least partially. As the years wore on, he and Reid had gotten closer and closer, but even now Derek wondered whether or not Reid truly knew what he meant to him. He’d grown up with sisters, whom he loved more than anything, but Reid truly was the best little brother he could’ve asked for. “You, me and mama definitely have to go see everybody soon. Auntie Garcia will lose her mind.” As if Hank knew that, he laughed his little baby laugh before his father kissed him on the forehead and attached the baby monitor to his belt to keep on eye on him. The minute Hank could get out of that playpen, he and Savannah were screwed; he’d be all over the place.

Derek looked back one more time, always paranoid about leaving his son’s line of vision for more than a few moments. He didn’t want to be a helicopter dad, but with what he did for a living, it was hard for him not to think of all the horrible things that could go wrong. No matter what, he would not let Hank go through what he’d been though. 

For a few moments, he leaned against the wall, just watching. These were his sweetest moments – watching as Hank explored the world around him, fascinated by everything and untouched by the evil life had to offer. Derek would keep it that way for as long as he possibly could. Satisfied Hank was safe, he turned around and walked toward the laundry area, putting a few pieces in before feeling a buzzing in his pocket.

The vibration reminded him that he needed to shoot his friends a text. With Savannah sick this week, they’d been extra busy and he hadn’t had a chance to shoot them a message saying how much he missed them. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered, noticing Garcia’s name on the screen.

He read over the words a few times. “This isn’t Garcia.” Over and over again, he scanned the words. Her name was there on the screen, but it didn’t sound like her – at all. Stilted language, no normal greeting like ‘how come you haven’t been bringing the rain lately Chocolate Thunder?’ Nothing. Then it hit him.

Scratch.

\---  
To say Savannah had been less than thrilled at his departure was an understatement. It wasn’t that he was going to see the team. If it were purely a pleasure trip, she would have been fine with it – a little inconvenient time considering she was ill, but that would have been fine. But it was about work, and she hated the fact that every time he seemed to leave that behind something reeled him back in.

But he had to. 

He was a civilian now, so he wouldn’t be helping with anything, but he needed to let them know the depth of what they were up against. If he was right, Scratch had cloned Garcia’s cellphone and sent this message to try and lure him, his family, or his other family into a trap, and while he was alive that wasn’t going to go over well.

Scratch was somehow in all places at once. He’d made it his mission in life to screw with the BAU, so Derek knew he was being watched. He’d taken a commercial flight and hadn’t even let anyone know he was coming. This needed to be as under the radar as it could possibly be.

\---  
“Baby!” Savannah said through a clogged nose and teary eyes. “Again with this? I thought you were supposed to be done with this?!”

He really did understand her frustration. Hell! He was annoyed too. Scratch was the one pulling him into things, but he was also pulling in his friends. They had to be warned. That’s what he’d told her before, but now here he was packing his bag for a few short days and they were having this conversation again.

“Why can’t you just call to let them know?” she asked.

“Savannah,” he said softly, sitting by her side as she huddled in her blanket, still half sleeping off the sickness that was wracking her body. “If this were any other unsub, I would do exactly that, but I told you what this man has done…what he’s capable of. I need to tell them in person. For all I know, I could call and he could reroute the message as it’s happening. I have no idea what’s possible when it comes to that and I can’t take the risk.” Her face fell into her hand, rubbing at her temples. She tended to do that when she knew he was right.

When she heaved a heavy sigh, he knew she understood. “I don’t have the authority to actually help them now. I’ll be one day, two at the maximum and then I’ll be home to take care of my beautiful-even-while-sick wife and my amazing little man, who is already nearly walking. Takes after his daddy.”

Savannah laughed slightly under her breath. “I’d say he takes after his mama, but okay. Come home safe.” 

“I will.”

\---  
After departing the plane, Derek made his way as quickly as he could to the Bureau, getting there just before the team was getting back from something he wasn’t sure. Out of curiosity, he asked Anderson. “Diana Reid was kidnapped, but she’s okay and Agent Reid is out.”

He’d asked “out” of where, only to be told that his kid brother had been in prison falsely accused of murder for the last three months, having gone across the border to obtain a supplement for her. As Anderson walked away, not realizing the gravity of what he’d just told him, Morgan sat down in Emily’s office where he’d been told to wait. 

Why hadn’t they told him?

Even Savannah would’ve understood him returning to the Bureau to help his kid brother. He would’ve moved heaven and earth to get him out of there. If there were any two people in his life that weren’t made for prison it was Garcia and Reid. 

Waiting for the team to get back seemed like an eternity as the gravity of Anderson’s revelation weighed heavily upon his shoulders. His heart hurt. Why hadn’t they said anything? Why was he in prison? Well, he’d asked Anderson. Apparently Cat Adams had framed him, and there was nothing more he wanted to do than take her out once and for all, but the bigger question for him was why he hadn’t been told. 

Finally, Emily walked into her office, a look of surprise flashing across her striking features before she walked into his arms. “We’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said. Then he had to ask. “Why didn’t anyone tell me about the kid?”

“He begged us not to,” she said honestly, finally feeling one of the many weights leave her shoulders. “I mean begged. He didn’t want anyone else worrying about him, especially not you, with Savannah and Hank. He assumed what we all did, that it was Scratch, and he didn’t want to put the three of you in the line of fire if he didn’t have to.” She hesitated a moment. “And although he didn’t say it, I also think he was mortified…you know how he looks up to you.”

Derek eyes fluttered closed, a mixture of gratefulness and guilty coursing through him. He appreciated Reid not bringing in his family when none of them were sure what was going on, but he could’ve been there for him – he would have. After exchanging a few pleasantries and hugging the people he’d missed so much, he told them why he was actually here.

Garcia looked pissed; she did not like being used. Emily sent her to track down the location and once she returned, the group of them (minus Spencer, who was with his mother in a safe house for the night) congregated in the round table room. Emily told them all everything. Scratch was trying to coax them into a trap. She admitted she had a meltdown in her office and allowed everyone else to do the same before prepping them all for what was to come. He watched with a slight smile as his baby girl and the new guy, Luke, went at each other. “You’ll always get what you need with this one,” Morgan smiled. “Now I can’t go with you because I’m a civilian now, but I know my friends, and my new friends are gonna go and get the job done.”

Morgan watched, a sudden sense of helplessness falling over him, as his friends and the new recruits filed out of the room. “Stay safe, Prentiss,” he said, his hand resting firmly on her shoulder. 

“I’ll do my best.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

Once everyone else had left, he was left alone with his Original Baby Girl. They started talking about Hank of course. Garcia said she needed more pictures, and he promised he’d spam her the moment he got home. “I don’t want you to go,” she said. He understood. He missed her too. He missed all of them. “I’m not going just yet, but I’m gonna go and bring Pretty Boy and his mama some breakfast.”

“My prince charming,” she sighed happily.

After giving her another hug, he lifted his hand to her cheek. “I love you, Baby Girl…Always.”

A slight tear left her eye as he turned away, a chuckle escaping him when he heard her comment on his ass. “Oh, I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.”

It was nearly 25 minutes later, after having gone through a fast-food joint and picking up three meals that he walked up toward the safe house. They didn’t need to be hiding anymore, but Reid’s apartment was still considered a crime scene. At first, he hesitated, what if Reid didn’t want to see him at all? What if Emily was right, and he was too embarrassed about what he’d been through to see him again?

There were very few times in his life when he could recall his heart nearly beating out of his chest. He could count them on one hand. When he watched his father die, when he married Savannah, when Savannah almost died, when Hank was born, and right now, standing in front of a foreign door looking for a familiar friend and wondering what his reaction would be. With a heavy hand, he pounded on the door three times, his heart beating in time with the footsteps that made their way toward the door.


	9. Spencer/Before the Crash

This was all one giant mistake, right?

He’d been awake for hours, but he was only just coming to – and as he looked around, he realized something was very, very wrong. His vision blurred, twisting and turning as he craned his head around and took in the bars and detectives around him. This didn’t look like home… 

That’s right. He was in Mexico. His mother flushed the supplements down the toilet, so he’d had to come and get more. His head pounded as he tried to piece time together, but when he rested his head in his hand, he hissed and recoiled. There was a slash on his hand. “What’s this?”

Someone he didn’t know answered him. “That’s a knife wound.”

He remembered a knife. He remembered someone stabbing Nadie. “Did he get away?” Spencer asked, still not understanding what was happening. “Did the unsub get away?”

“No,” the officer said, staring dead-eyed through the bars. “He’s standing right in front of me.” 

D-D-Did he k-kill someone?

\---  
Watch me.

That’s what he’d said.

He’d said it with such confidence, watching as Cat’s eyes dropped in defeat for a second time, but he couldn’t help but think that he was lying to himself. How was he supposed to come out of this? He’d admitted to enjoying hurting those men in prison, and while he didn’t enjoy it as much as he made Cat believe, there was an element of truth to his words. Was he the same person? Could he ever be? Did he want to be? 

As he opened the car door and sat in the passenger’s seat opposite JJ, his mind raced faster than it ever had before. But unlike before, when his train of thought had an obvious destination, it was racing in circles, like an infant’s crayon on a sheet of paper. “Spence,” JJ said, reaching over and placing her hand on his arm. “Things are going to take time, but you’ll be okay.”

“How do you know, Jennifer?” 

“Askari,” she said, the shivers rolling up her spine as she spoke his name. Even three years after the fact, it was still hard to speak his name. “Spence, he took everything from me. At least, I thought he took everything…he took my baby. And then he tortured me, to within an inch of my life. I came back from that because I know that I did what I needed to do to survive. So did you.”

“Cat was right,” he said without realizing it. 

“About what?”

“I enjoyed hurting the men in prison,” he replied sadly.

JJ honestly wasn’t surprised. After the team had come to her rescue, she’d landed a few hits on Askari, and every single one felt like the sweetest vindication. She too had enjoyed every blow she’d landed. “You don’t think I enjoyed hurting Askari when I had the chance? You don’t think I relished every second I outmaneuvered Izzy Rogers when she had my son? Spence, enjoying taking down the bad guys, reveling in the hurt you inflict on them doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.”

“Then why do I feel like one?” he said, sniffling as the tears fell from his eyes. “I feel like a bad person.”

A slight laugh escaped her mouth as she turned the corner, “Because you are the definition of a good person, Spence. You so rarely think about yourself, sometimes, to a fault,” she said, referring to the reason he ended up in this situation to begin with. “But just because you falter every now and then doesn’t make you bad, it makes you human.”

In his mind, when he dissected her words, he knew she was right, but it was hard to truly let the words sink into his skin. Spencer remained quiet, not really knowing how to address any of what he was feeling. “Let me ask you something,” she said, turning another corner. “Do you want to go out now and kill people?” 

“No,” he said, his voice cracking as he spoke. “I want to make sure my mother is okay and I want to go home.”

“Exactly! You did what you did in prison because it was the only way you were going to make it out alive. And I meant what I said earlier, I would’ve done the exact same thing. With no hesitation.” Pulling up to the Bureau, she quickly rounded the front of the SUV and opened the door for Spencer. She gathered him into her arms and looked at him much the same way she would Henry or Will. “You did what you had to do. You won’t be the same person anymore. You can’t be. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to turn into someone unrecognizable. I won’t let you. Okay?”

Spencer wrapped his arms around her so tightly, she thought he might not let go, but once he did, he pulled away and she pushed his hair from his eyes, assuring her as best she could that he wasn’t alone – and he never would be.

\---  
Day 53

His eye could barely open this morning. Again, he survived a beating. The second once since he’d been inside. Though this time he was positive Shaw was behind it; he was running everything in here, Spencer just knew it.

Or did he?

Shaw said he was losing his mind. How could he be sure he wasn’t? It had been 53 days. 53 days of fear. 53 days of possible beatings. 53 days of going over every detail in his mind, wondering if there was anything he would’ve done differently. 53 days of questioning himself. He had no reason to kill Nadie; she was helping him, but he couldn’t remember a damn thing. How could he be sure he hadn’t hurt her?

“No,” he said to himself, wincing a bit as his split lip began to sting. He could be sure he hadn’t hurt her because that’s not who he was. He was JJ’s best friend. He was Morgan’s Pretty Boy. He was the little brother Emily never had. He was Uncle Spencer. There was someone waiting out there whom he would give all the love he had left in him. “No, that’s not me. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

“Prisoner Cell C5!” A guard yelled, causing Spencer to pop up from his cot and wipe the tears from his eyes. That was the last thing he needed in here. “Visitor!”

As he was escorted to the interview room, he wondered who was visiting him today. The two people he knew it wouldn’t be were the two people he wished he could see most, but Morgan needed to be kept away from this. If this was Scratch, Spencer would never forgive himself if he brought Morgan and his family into this. The other person he still hadn’t seen had been Luke, and he wondered if there was a reason Luke hadn’t come to see him – and why that thought bothered him so much.

\---  
“Ready, Spence?” JJ asked, as the elevator crept its way upward. After everything that had happened in the past three months, JJ was petrified that Spencer’s mind would break.

With a weak smile, he turned toward her and nodded, praying that his mother would remember him. The elevator doors opened to reveal the team, Luke, Emily, Tara, Stephen, and Garcia, but his eyes lay squarely on his mother. “Diana,” Emily said, leaning into his mother, “Spencer is here.”

The look she gave him nearly broke his heart – she couldn’t recognize him. And then all of a sudden she did, practically falling to his arms. “Hi, Mom.”

Diana squeezed him as tightly as she could, her fingers running through his hair much like they did after his baths as a child. When she pulled back, she looked straight at him. “Don’t leave me. Ever again.”

“I won’t,” he whispered. It was the first time in months, he’d felt truly happy. He was out of prison and his mother was alive.

Emily walked up to them both, placing hands on each of their shoulders and telling them that they’d be driven to a safe house until Spencer’s apartment could be returned to him. “Thanks, Emily,” he said, glancing once more to the team. For a moment, his eyes lingered on Luke, making a mental note to ask him why he hadn’t come to see him. They hadn’t known each other long, but Spencer thought they had clicked, and had been disappointed to not see him during his 3-month stay.

“Always, Reid,” she said. “Now go get some sleep.”

Arm-in-arm, Spencer and his mother left the Bureau with only a change of clothes. “Who is this man?” Diana asked, staring at Anderson. He was the only one Emily trusted to drive Spencer and his mother to the safe house. At the moment, Emily was suspicious of everyone.

“This is Agent Grant Anderson, Mom,” he said. “He’s one of the very few people I trust right now, other than my team. It’s okay.” After ensuring his mother was inside the car okay, he took a deep breath (which felt like breathing in the freshest air after such a tumultuous three months) and got inside.

When the car started moving, Spencer flashed back momentarily, once again in the back of the transfer vehicle when he was going to prison. “You okay, sweetie?” Diana asked. “Had a long day at the beach?”

She was gone again. It was happening more often now, but she was alive, and she still recognized him as her son, and so Spencer did his best to smile. “Yea. We both need some sleep.”

After about fifteen minutes, Anderson dropped them off, ensuring that they had everything they needed before leaving. “Thank you, Grant,” Spencer said, calling him by his first name for the first time ever. He noticed that he called people by their first names when he was feeling vulnerable; he wanted to go back to the way things were.

Once the door closed, Diana wrapped her arms around her son’s neck again. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said. “You’re not going back right? You’re out now?” She was back again.

“Yes, Mom. I’m out. Thanks to the team.”

“I’ll have to remember to thank them,” she said, pulling back and kissing him on the top of the head. “Spencer, I need you to promise me something.”

Spencer pulled back slightly. “Of course, mom. Anything.”

“You may not like what I’m about to say, but I need you to listen to me.” Spencer’s heartbeat began to pick up pace. “Whenever I’m gone from this world-“

“Mom-“ he said, desperate to not hear the rest of what she had to say.

“No, listen,” she responded. “I can feel myself getting worse. I know it’s happening and I’ve made peace with it. I need for you to not beat yourself up, wondering what more you could’ve done to help me. You’ve already gone above and beyond what any mother should want from their son. You’ve already done too much. I need you to move on, remain open to love, continue to believe in the beauty in the world. Because it’s there. It’s there whenever I look at you. And I need you to know no matter where my mind goes, I love you more than anything in this world.”

“I love you, too, Mom,” he cried, his voice cracking as his mother wiped away his tears. “So much.” He knew that doing what she asked would be much easier said than done, but he would try. Dammit, he would try.

For what felt like an hour, the two stood in the center of the safe house with their arms wrapped around each other. “I’m going to try and get some sleep,” Diana said eventually, patting her son’s cheek with a very tired hand. “I love you, Spencer.”

“I love you, too, Mom. So much. Try and sleep. I’m going to do the same soon.”

She gave him a soft smile and picked up her bag that Penelope had prepared with some clothes. Before heading to the bathroom to change, she turned around with one more word. “Don’t stay up too late. You’ll just run through everything you could’ve done differently in that big, beautiful brain of yours. What’s done is done.”

Spencer gave her a small, knowing smile. Of course, she’d know him better than anyone else in the world. After she got changed, it took her less than 10 minutes to fall asleep.

As he listened to her light snoring, he did exactly what she said he was going to do, going over everything in his mind trying to figure out where things went wrong, but that was obviously useless. He probably should try and get some sleep, but he was interrupted by a knock a series of knocks at the door.

His heart jumped into his throat at the sound, wondering who could be here. Who would even know he was here? But he went up to the door anyway and looked through the hole. It was Morgan.

The tears began to sting at the corners of his eyes as he opened the door. “Hey, Kid.”


	10. Spencer/Aftermath

The few people he couldn’t see during his stay were the people he wanted to see most. 

Now Morgan was here – and he knew. He didn’t regret not telling him; he’d kept one of his closest friends and his family out of this mess, but seeing him on his doorstep at 3 in the morning after all of this was overwhelming.

He felt like a freight train hit him. Spencer sucked in his lips as they began to tremble, desperately trying to keep the tears from flooding over and failing miserably.

Without a word, Morgan walked into the safe house and closed the door, placing whatever he had brought with him on the counter before wrapping his arms around him, his hand coming around the back of his head and into his mess of brown curls as he let loose everything he’d been feeling in the last three months. “I’m sorry,” Spencer said, crying harder than he ever had before into his best friend’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about, kid,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. He didn’t know what else to do, so for nearly 10 minutes, they stood in the middle of the living space as Spencer cried.

After what felt like an eternity, Spencer lifted his head, ashamed of his crying and wiped away a few stray years. “Thanks for coming to see me,” he said softly, turning around and walking toward the couch he’d just emerged from. “How did you end up back here? Did Emily call?”

“No,” Morgan said sadly. “I got a text from someone that looked like Garcia, but it wasn’t here. I assumed that it was Scratch. The team is one their way to get him now.” He must’ve seen the look on Spencer’s face, because he raised his hand to rest on his shoulder. “You are where you need to be right now.”

Spencer knew Morgan was right. At this point, he felt like everyone was making better judgments than him. But the fact that his team was out tracking down Scratch right now and he wasn’t made him feel guilty – that useless, helpless feeling again. “Your mom needs you,” he said. “You’ll be back doing what you do best in no time. Take the time you need now.”

With a deep breath, Spencer looked back toward the bedroom where his mother was still sleeping soundly. “I know. It’s just all…too much, which is saying a lot for me.” The side of his mouth turned up into the smallest of smirks. It was hard to make a joke right now, but he had to do something to bring some levity to the situation or he would just sit here for hours on end and cry. Morgan’s smile mirrored Spencer’s as they sat there for a few minutes in silence.

“Can I ask you something?” Morgan wondered.

Spencer knew what he was going to ask, but instead of going off on a tangent as he normally would, he just shrugged, allowing Morgan to ask and doing his very best to keep the tears away. He felt like he’d cried enough for the next 20 years, but the tears just kept flowing.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I…I could’ve helped you. I would’ve…”

There were very few times that Spencer could recall where Morgan’s voice cracked with emotion. Talking to Carl Buford was one, but he could definitely only recount maybe two other times he’d been on the verge of tears. That alone was enough to break him.

“I know you would’ve,” Spencer started as he wiped a tear away with his thumb. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.” His voice caught in his throat as he tried to continue, looking away when the tears started up once more. “I thought what everyone else did, that this was all Scratch.” He motioned around the foreign space wishing he were back home in his apartment. “I didn’t want to bring you and Savannah and little Hank into this because Scratch knows no bounds. If he hurt you…because I brought you into this…I would’ve lost the little bit of sanity I had left.”

JJ was coming in today. Although he welcomed any member of his team coming to visit him, he desperately wanted to see Morgan, but he wouldn’t risk his family. There was no doubt in his mind he’d lose it if something happened his nephew – his namesake. No, he just couldn’t do it.

As names were called, he got into line with the other inmates – inmates, he told himself, not other – and walked slowly outside noticing a waterfall of blonder hair that could only belong to JJ. “Hey, Spence,” she said, her eyes watering in a way she couldn’t hope to hide. He hated being here, but seeing his friends hurt because he was here made him hurt even more. “Are you okay?” She must’ve noticed the bruises on his face, yellowed as the days wore on without another beating to layer the colors.

“I’m okay as I can be,” he replied. Spencer was normally the type of person to placate others at the cost of his own emotions, but he couldn’t lie – not now. He was in hell. “How’re Henry and Michael? How’s Will?” He wanted to talk about anything else – anything that could bring him out of the prison he’d locked himself in, physically and figuratively.

JJ started to tell him about Will; he sent his good wishes and prayed every day for Spencer’s return home. Michael was starting to string two and three words together to form sentences. To Spencer, it seemed like yesterday that his friend had returned from maternity leave for the second time. “Henry’s more aware. He misses you.”

“Tell him I miss him too,” Spencer said. Quickly, he checked around the small area to see if there was anyone around who had administered his previous beatings; if they were here he had to stop crying right now. It made him easy prey and he knew it.

He watched as JJ reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper. On it was a picture of him and Henry; he could tell because of the hair. Henry’s was off to the side and Spencer’s was a mountain of unruly curls. “Tell him I love it,” he said, thankful that no one he knew was in here at the moment. More than anything he wanted to take it back to his cell, but he knew they wouldn’t allow it, so he stared at it and memorized each line so he could think of it as he fell asleep at night. Michael and Hank were too young to know what was going on, but Henry was old enough to know the seriousness of his Uncle’s situation, and Spencer hated himself for that. While he’d done what he’d done for his mother, he didn’t think about the consequences his choices would have on everyone else.

As their time came to a close, Spencer thought again about Derek. He had to tell himself over and over again that bringing him into this would purely be for his own relief and therefore wouldn’t be fair to him. “Who’s coming in next?” he asked. He needed something to look forward to. “Luke?” That was the other person he wanted to see. “He hasn’t been in yet. Tell him I might start to get a complex and think he hates me.”

JJ smirked outwardly, but on the inside she grimaced; she knew why Luke was staying away. Their new friend had developed feelings for Spencer and seeing him in here hurt him, so he stayed away. JJ would’ve bet her life on it. “I think Rossi is up next,” she forced herself to say. “Should it be someone else? It’s totally up to you.”

She left it open for him. She left it open for him to say Derek. He’d told everyone repeatedly that he didn’t want to bring Derek into this, but his mind was selfish; he wanted to see him. “No,” he said sadly. “I welcome anyone coming in to see me. I wish none of you had to be here.”

“We wish the same for you,” she replied. “We’re gonna get you out of here. Soon.”

“That’s not all, is it?” Morgan asked.

Spencer shook his head and bit down on his knuckle, not wanting to admit to what he was about to say, but he was too tired to dam the words into his brain; they needed to spill out. “No. It wasn’t. I didn’t want to hurt you, but besides that…it’s embarrassing. I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t kill anyone. But I never imagined I’d end up in prison. I was already ashamed that everyone else was going to look at me differently. I wanted to push that possibility away when it came to you as much as possible.”

“Kid, you did what you had to do for your mother. Anyone who says that they wouldn’t have at least thought about doing what you did is lying to themselves.” Standing up, he went to the counter and brought Reid the pancakes he’d bought. “Eat something.” He took a few bites of the pancakes, feeling the sickly sweetness fill his mouth. He wasn’t used to this anymore. “And look, I appreciate you not wanting to bring my family into this, but you never have to be embarrassed in front of me.”

After a few more bites of pancake, his stomach couldn’t take it anymore, so he pushed it away. “I’ll try and keep that in mind. I’m sorry again.”

“It’s okay, kid.”

Another few moments passed in silence before Morgan attempted to turn the conversation to happier matters. He pulled out his phone and started showing Reid pictures of Hank and Savannah. He could tell by the look on Spencer’s face that he was glad he hadn’t brought them into this mess. Instead of flying fists, blue prison material and rusted bars filling his mind, he allowed pictures of the smiling baby boy to replace them.

“Thanks again for coming, Morgan,” he said, standing up to give him a hug. “I appreciate it more than you know.”

“I know,” he smiled. He patted him on the back and watched as the blanket of sleep fell over Spencer in an instant. He was going to leave, but instead he looked to the side where a mountain of blankets stood. After picking one up and placing it over Spencer, he grabbed another for himself, falling asleep at his friend’s side.


	11. Derek/Aftermath

Derek practically wanted to throw up he was so nervous. He wanted to be needed; the idea that Reid might not want to see him was devastating. The footsteps approached the door and then stopped and in those few milliseconds, Derek was almost positive that Reid had looked out, saw who it was, and decided to say nothing and turn around to go to sleep.

But slowly he opened the door. The visage that met him was a 180-degree turn from the man he was used to seeing – the one who was inquisitive, seemingly all-knowing and looked on the bright side despite all he’d been through. The Reid in front of him now was tired, exhausted really, almost numb, and the scariest thought of all, barely tethered to reality. Morgan could see Reid’s thoughts simultaneously running around and knocking into each other, keeping him slightly off-kilter, even now. 

His lip began to quiver, bringing Derek backed to when JJ had been taken away from her job at the Bureau. He’d been fighting so hard to keep the tears at bay. Like JJ had, Morgan stepped into the alien living space, so pale and clean in contrast to Reid’s dark and musty book-filled apartment, and gathered him into his arms. 

As his kid brother tried so hard to keep the tears at bay, Morgan raised his hand to the back of his head, his fingers getting caught in the tangled mess of curls atop his head. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was here, Reid wanted to see him, and from what he could feel, Reid needed him here.

For nearly ten minutes, he allowed the younger man to cry in his arms, doing his best to console him even though no such thing as consolation could be possible at a time like this. He kept saying he was sorry. Why was he sorry? He’d already done so much, not only for his mother, but for him too. He’d put his job and life on the line to help his mother, and he’d put his sanity on the back burner to help keep Derek and his family safe. The tug of war between being grateful for Spencer’s silence and being guilt-ridden because of that gratefulness was something he didn’t know how to struggle with, so instead of trying to, he just squeezed tighter, hoping beyond hope that it would be enough to get rid of his best friend’s demons, and maybe some of his own.

“Thanks for coming to see me,” Spencer said, turning back toward the couch. He said it so flatly, like his emotions were still pushed into the back corner of his mind – because that’s what you had to do to keep your sanity. Feeling anything meant your hold on reality was shaken, and Spencer couldn’t afford that on the inside. 

The two sat on the couch. Spencer wondered how he had come to be here, so falling into a somewhat easy conversation, he told him about the text message he got that definitely wasn’t from Garcia, but probably Scratch. Spencer’s lips turned down even more at the thought of his friends going out to get one of the most demented killers they’d ever gone against, only to be here. He felt helpless; Morgan could see it in his eyes. “You are where you need to be right now,” he said. “Your mom needs you. The team will be fine.”

Morgan grappled with his feelings as Reid turned back towards where his mother was asleep. He too was overwhelmed with everything going on his head. “Which is saying a lot for me.” Spencer smirked, a forced smirk, but nonetheless one that was appreciated by Morgan. Everything that he’d just learned was weighing heavily on his heart. If he felt the way he did, then he could only imagine how Spencer must feel, and then he felt worse, knowing that Spencer had been through so much and still managed to make a joke to lighten the mood. Morgan forced a smirk much like Spencer’s. There was still something on his mind. And although he most likely knew the answer, for some reason, he still wanted to hear it come out of Spencer’s mouth.

“Can I ask you something?”

A look of recognition flashed across Spencer’s face, as if he knew what he was about to ask. He was Spencer. He had an IQ of 187. Of course he knew, but Morgan needed to ask anyway. “Why didn’t you tell me? I…I could’ve helped you. I would’ve…” Morgan hated when his voice trembled. Could not being in control of one’s emotions be a fear? Because if it was, Morgan definitely suffered from it. Reid could undoubtedly tell him the exact word for such a thing. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. 

Reid’s perceived weakness fell to strength as he began to cry again, letting Morgan in after keeping him away for so many months. “I know you would’ve. That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

That’s what Morgan had assumed. Reid, being his too altruistic self, had forgone seeing him for the sake of his family’s safety. As the tears continued to fall freely, he went on to tell him how he thought what the rest of the team had, that everything happening to him had been the product of Scratch and not Cat Adams. “I didn’t want to bring you and Savannah and little Hank into this because Scratch knows no bounds.” Spencer continued on and admitted that if something had happened to them because he’d asked to see Morgan, he would lost his mind – and it wouldn’t have been a far trip.

In the ensuing silence, Morgan found himself wondering what he would’ve done had Spencer asked for him. For one, he would’ve absolutely gone to visit him. His impulsive side said he would’ve dropped everything to do what he needed to do to help Reid, whether that would’ve included helping the team or somehow getting himself put into prison to protect him, it didn’t matter. There was no doubt in his mind he would’ve done something to help. As he glanced at his friend’s tear-stained face, he wondered how many bruises had blemished his face over the past three months. Morgan’s size would’ve kept people away from him, but Reid’s spindly frame and scared eyes undoubtedly drew people’s fists toward him. The thought of someone beating up his friend made him sick. “Did you think about asking for me?” Derek asked. The question came out much more hopeful and vulnerable than he had intended.

Spencer nodded slightly; it was almost imperceptible. “So many times. I wanted to see you. I wanted you to make me feel better. Convince me I wasn’t a murderer. But it would’ve been for my sake only, and I couldn’t risk putting you in harm’s way, so I swallowed my wants.” He’d practically choked on them.

Morgan couldn’t help but ask if there was something else to his reasoning for keeping him away. “That’s not all, is it?”

“No,” he said, biting down on his knuckle to compose himself for a moment. Not wanting to hurt Morgan or his family was only part of it. He was also embarrassed. Embarrassed about being a disgrace to the Bureau, and more importantly, his team; the friend he loved so much. He didn’t want to let them down. “I was already ashamed that everyone else was going to look at me differently.” Basically, he said that if was able to maintain one of his relationships as if he hadn’t had a stay in prison, he’d feel better.

Morgan wondered how Reid had survived. If it weren’t for the kid’s brain, he was sure Reid would’ve lost it long ago. Morgan felt so awful knowing that Reid, even for a second, thought that he and the rest of the team would look at him differently. Moving closer on the couch, Morgan did his best to console, ultimately feeling like a failure. “Kid, you did what you had to do four your mother.” Granted Morgan wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if he were in Reid’s shoes, but he definitely would’ve at least thought about crossing the border. Like Reid, Morgan’s mother was too important to him not to think about putting everything on the line for her.

As Spencer did his best to control himself, Morgan stood up and grabbed one of the plates of food he’d brought. Pancakes. “Eat something.” He watched as Spencer took a couple bites, noticing him grimace at the taste. He’d probably gotten used to prison food. Hopefully the pancakes wouldn’t make him sick; that was the last thing he needed. Slowly, Reid picked at his food, avoiding eye contact with him as much as possible. He was so overwhelmed. “And look, I appreciate you not wanting to bring my family into this, but…” Reid was family; he’d named his son after him. He never, ever wanted Reid to be embarrassed to confide in him. Ever.

Pushing the pancakes away, he finally looked his way. “I’ll try and keep that in mind. And I’m sorry again. For everything.”

“It’s okay, kid. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

What felt like the fifth dry patch of silence fell between them before he decided to get Reid’s mind off everything that had happened. From his pocket, he pulled out his phone and started showing Reid pictures of Savannah and Hank. “God, he’s getting so big,” Reid said, his smile evident and proud for the first time since Morgan walked into the door. “The muscle tone in his legs is great. He’ll be walking by himself in no time and then you and Savannah are screwed. You’ll never rest again.” 

Morgan chuckled and thanked the gods that he was able to do something to bring Reid out of his own mind, if only for a few moments. “Thanks again for coming, Morgan,” Spencer said. “I appreciate it more than you know.”

He knew; he always knew. The words weren’t spoken between them all that often, but it was always, always implied. Releasing him from another hug, he watched as Reid collapsed into the couch and fell asleep in what seemed like seconds. After everything, it was surprising he’d stayed awake as long as he had – even with all the adrenaline coursing through his veins. When he started to shiver, Morgan reached toward a pile of blankets and placed over his friend’s frame, now even thinner through stress, before picking up another one. He had been planning on leaving, but he was tired and frankly, he would be surprised if Spencer didn’t wake up in a cold sweat at least once or twice. Morgan couldn’t be there before, but he could now - no matter what.


	12. Stephen/Aftermath

A searing pain shocked him awake. His gasp sounded foreign to him as it rasped out of his throat. When he looked to his side, he saw both Tara and Rossi knocked out but seemingly okay. The adrenaline coursed through him at lightning speed, but when he attempted to move, he wasn’t able to. He panicked, unable to see why he couldn’t move until he glanced down. “No,” he whispered. His legs were sandwiched between his seat and the steering column, which had pushed its way into the car as their vehicle had been smashed into a nearby tree. The only plus side was that he felt a white hot pain, which he assumed was better than feeling nothing at all. 

Despite knowing he couldn’t move, he attempted to, turning toward his colleagues and struggling to stir them awake. “Dave. Tara,” he whispered harshly. At least it sounded like a whisper to his own ears, now drowning in a mess of crunching metal, car engines and faint voices he couldn’t distinguish between. “Wake up!”

Thankfully, he was able to contort himself to rouse both of them up from his place in the driver’s seat. Tara’s eyes fluttered open first. “Tara, you okay?” he asked, his face going slightly pale from loss of blood. 

She grabbed her head, feeling around for any lumps or bumps. “Maybe a slight concussion, but I’m okay.” Her eyes widened when she looked down to see his legs. “Oh my god, Stephen. What happened?” As she scrambled to get out of the car, Rossi woke up and immediately saw what was wrong with Stephen. 

His right leg was gushing blood – at least that’s what it looked like. He kept attempting to move the steering column away from his legs, but no matter how hard he pushed nothing was working. It was probably better that way. “Stop trying to move it,” Tara said, opening his car door and ripping off her coat. She started to tie it around his right leg, which was much worse off than the left. “The steering column probably hit your femoral artery. We can’t know if it’s a tear or if it’s been severed until the medics arrive.”

The reality of his surroundings finally hit him. There was no way he was going to be able to accompany the team, and if he knew Scratch at all, him not being there was really going to screw over the team. 

As he ran through everything in his mind and what could possibly be awaiting them, Emily, JJ and Luke rushed over, slightly scratched up and bruised but none the worse for wear. “Oh my god,” JJ said, her eyes glazing over with tears as the sirens sounded off in the distance. “Medics are on their way.”

“Guys, I’m not going to be able to go with you-“

Emily placed her hand on his shoulder, now at his side on the driver’s side while Tara was sitting in the car at his side to keep pressure on the tourniquet she’d cinched around his leg. “Of course you’re not,” she started. “We need to get you to a hospital.” Although she didn’t want to say it out loud, Stephen could see the fear in her eyes. Once the steering column got pulled away from his legs, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t bleed out. 

“Because of that I need you to listen,” he started, wincing at the pain in his legs. “Scratch is all about the psychological torture. Me not being there is going to hurt you. I can feel it.” As the medics came toward the car, they separated him from the rest of the team, so he screamed out a couple of details they might need in order to get inside his head. Birthdates, the day he started with the BAP, the day he met Prentiss – anything he could think of that might be pertinent to what was lying ahead of them. 

As he was carted away, he felt himself getting weaker and weaker, the loss of blood finally catching up with him. He watched his friends reluctantly get into another car, not ready to leave him, but having no other choice. “Can you tell us your name?” One of the EMTs asked. 

“Stephen Walker,” he said weakly. “My birthday is September 17, 1970. I have a wife and two kids, Monica, Maya and Eli.” They were all the questions one would ask to make sure that had his faculties about him. For now he did, but it was more than possible that he wouldn’t in the ensuing seconds or minutes. 

He was loaded into the ambulance and the doors closed, shutting off contact from his team for good. “I need someone to call my wife,” he choked out as the EMT pulled tighter on Tara’s makeshift tourniquet. “She needs to know I’m okay.”

“Don’t worry,” the man said. “We’re going to make sure you get back to your wife. Someone will call as soon as we get to the hospital.”

That wasn’t quick enough. He could feel himself fading fast. Monica needed to know how much he loved her – how much he appreciated the sacrifices she’d made to be his wife. His kids had to know that he loved them more than words could express and that he would forever be proud of them both. 

His vision started to blur. The lights overhead going in and out of existence as his body grew colder. “Please tell them,” he said softly, barely audible to his own ears. “Please, you have to tell them.”

***

The next thing he knew, he woke up in the hospital, his wife and kids by his side. “Dad!” Maya said happily, collapsing her front end on top of him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Maya careful,” Monica said, giving her husband a small smile. “Be careful of his legs.”

His legs. That’s right. His legs had been crushed. “How long have I been out?” he asked. 

“About seven hours,” she said. “You were in surgery for four. The femoral artery in your right leg was nearly severed.” Her eyes filled with tears as she truly realized how close she was to losing her husband and the father of her children. “The EMTs told me that Tara fixed a tourniquet on your leg?”

Stephen nodded his head weakly, still so tired from his ordeal, yet worked up over what had happened to his friends. “They said if she hadn’t done such a good job on the tourniquet you wouldn’t have made it,” she cried. She squeezed his hand and he did his best to return the gesture. He couldn’t wipe her tears away, his body still too tired, but he could smile. When he did, she melted into him, her tears falling onto his hand. “You’re going to be okay.”

“When the crash happened, you three were the first things to cross my mind,” he said softly. “The only things really. You know how much I love you all right?”

“We do,” Eli said, shrugging with a slight smile indicative of a teenager trying to remain cool under pressure. Then he swallowed hard and wiped away a few rogue tears. “I’m glad you’re okay dad.”

He chuckled, thankful that the stitches were in his leg and not his stomach. “Me too.” For a few moments, the four sat in silence, until he caught sight of the bag that contained his personal effects. “Can you grab my phone?”

He was desperate for some word from the team – something that might let him know what happened and if everyone else was okay. When he opened the phone there was only one text and it was from Emily. Quickly, he read it and breathed a heavy sigh. “Everything okay?” Monica asked.

“Yea.” He exhaled. “I just want to focus on getting better now. Can I speak to a doctor?”

Monica was just grateful that he was up and speaking. He was cognizant and relatively healthy considering he’d nearly died just hours ago. As she got up, she told the kids to keep on eye on their father and make sure he didn’t get into trouble while she went to grab his doctor. 

Minutes later, she returned, his doctor, Dr. Maya Handler, in tow. “Maya’s a lucky name for me, I guess,” he said as he smiled at his daughter. “How does everything look?” He glanced down at his legs and noticed the left one seemed fine; it was the right that was cut, bruised and blood from the accident. He couldn’t feel it all that much and that worried him. 

Dr. Handler patted him on the shoulder as she sat down, so she could speak directly to him. “You are a lucky man,” she started. “Your friend’s tourniquet saved your life. You nearly died, but we were able to repair the artery and give you a couple of transfusions. I won’t lie though, your leg took a lot of damage. You’re going to need physical therapy to be able to walk on it again. Thankfully, your spine wasn’t hit, so there was no paralysis of any kind.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “I know you’re probably itching to get back to work, but I need you to take it easy for a while, okay?”

Closing his eyes, he nodded, noticing his wife’s worried expression. She knew him well. Under different circumstances, he would want to return to work as soon as possible, but he’d been thinking a lot lately. “You won’t be discharged for another week or so, but once you are I can refer you to a physical therapist.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

When she left the room, Monica returned to his side. They needed to talk. “Hey kids,” he said. “How about the two of you take a $20 out of my wallet and go grab something to eat and drink. Bring back a sandwich and a Dr. Pepper for your mother.”

“Okay, dad,” Eli said. “Do you want anything?”

“Just water,” he said sleepily. 

Once they’d left the room, Monica squeezed his hand. “Please tell me you’re not trying to go back to work sooner than you can handle?”

Stephen shook his head. “Monica, I’ve been thinking about work for a while. What I want and who I want to be. I’ve been working at this for more than 25 years. You know I can’t stay completely home or I’ll lose my mind, but…I think it’s time for me to retire. It would be six months before I could return to the BAU anyway.”

His wife’s eyes lit up. “You mean you wanna come home? You wanna stay home?”

“I do,” he replied, lifting his hand up to the side of her face. “You and the kids have given up so much for me to do what I do. It’s time for me to be a full-time father and husband…and maybe a part-time college professor. I could teach a morning class and have the kids fall asleep to the sound of my voice.”

Monica’s eyes watered as she thought about having him home more often. Stephen loved his work, but she couldn’t deny this life was difficult. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“More than sure,” he said. “It’s time for a change."


	13. Scratch

He was nothing if not a patient man.

Everything was in place. He had all he needed or wanted in this moment. In the middle of the house, stood a room with no windows – just four walls and sparse furniture. The middle of the floor bore a single chair – one that would be the heart of his second surrender.

Those killers the BAU tracked day in and day out? Absolute amateurs compared to him; honestly, the only ones he had respect for were the occasional women they came across. They had a mission, a purpose – it wasn’t about pain, it wasn’t about some selfish need, for those women, killing was secondary - revenge was primary.

Though he didn’t come from the same place in the context of being a killer, he understood them; they killed because it was necessary.

And so did he.

Ever since he was a child, he knew he was different. Between his life with his parents taking in foster children and his intelligence, there was no chance he would’ve ever fit in. Frankly, it was better that way. Walking around the schoolyard, he’d watch his fellow classmates and scoff at how inferior they were. With nearly a 190 IQ, he couldn’t comprehend their little lives – the stupid things they did and said and worried about. There were so many other problems in the world. Why did their stupid troubles matter? 

He grew up superior. He grew up knowing he would make his mark on the world. But while the world assumed he’d make a difference with an amazing medical breakthrough or a landmark legal decision, he knew differently.

They’d called him dangerous.

They truly had no idea. If they had, they would’ve locked him up and thrown away the key.

The NSA had taken him on because he was considered too threatening to work in the general population. With his mind, he could easily take down the Pentagon or with a little work – only a little mind you – start the world’s next great war. So the U.S. government channeled that energy. It had been enough for a while. The work there actually challenged him slightly, but only for a small time, and then the news came.

His father’s imprisonment and subsequent death had been for nothing, because Dr. Regan ran with the Believe the Children movement, the movement that told local law enforcement to believe the ramblings of children. They’d claimed his father was a pedophile, but he wasn’t, and he’d died in prison because of exaggerated claims and the desire of a psychologist to make her own mark on the world.

How did the BAU become his target?

They’d taken on the case. It was as simple as that. He had no grudge against any of them personally, but Regan needed to die. Those kids needed to die. Revenge. It was all he had lived for. Once they were all gone, he needed to find another reason to live. And he’d landed on it watching the BAU team do their work. They were considered the best in their field. Unbeatable.

Ah, a new reason to live. 

To prove his superiority.

Sitting in the middle of the room, he began to file through the pictures in his pocket. Penelope Garcia. With her curly blonde locks, loud-colored frames and even brighter lipstick, one look was all it took to know she’d be the easiest to corrupt – to torture. Someone like her…she wasn’t meant to cross paths with someone like him. His plans for the rest of the team would rip her apart; she’d be so close to being able to help and yet so far, her communication cut off at varying intervals, with less and less of the team members each time, slowly driving her just a touch too far with all of the possibilities and few certainties. That was too simple, too easily done. The rest would be harder to drive to insanity, and so much more interesting.

Pulling the picture of Penelope aside, he let it float to the floor, his eyes now falling on the other beautiful blonde, Jennifer Jareau – loving wife and caring mother of two sons. It could’ve been three had she not been sent overseas into the hands of Michael Hastings and Tivon Askari. The entire team had been through enough pain for a lifetime, but Jareau…she’d experienced a few special types of pain: the never-ending pain of losing a child and the pointed, deliberate pain of torture. Again, he wasn’t a man to take pleasure in physical pain, but she couldn’t truly be sure of that.

Luke Alvez. Lewis’s finger ran over the cut of the new member’s jawline before carelessly tossing the picture on the floor. His room had taken some doing. A special painting was needed to truly get into the mind of the former U.S. Army Ranger. Every piece of his room was specially designed to bring him back to his time in the service. Each and every horrible loss he suffered, the men he lost, the fears that formed upon his discharge, all of it would come back. Maybe he would make it out, go back to the BAU and live a happy life with the man he loved but never told. Maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter to him.

The new Unit Chief. SSA Emily Prentiss. No more Agent Hotchner – driven away by the sheer possibility of his son being targeted. No doubt he lived in fear every day that Jack wouldn’t make it until his 18th birthday. Knowing he was living with that fear was enough for him. Prentiss however had been isolated for seven months. After finding a family, a group of people she would give anything for, she had to leave them for their own safety. What would it be like for her to be isolated once more? Never knowing if she’d see her loved ones again. It was too bad that periodic outages were necessary for his plan, otherwise he would’ve given anything to watch SSA Prentiss lose her mind.

Only three left, not including the young one, Reid, of course. Once he was back inside, he’d have to find a way to get into contact with Ms. Adams – she was actually quite impressive. Now for Stephen Walker and David Rossi, the forever family man and the newly crowned one. Well, now it was just David unfortunately. Actually that might make it more interesting. He would need to prove he knew Stephen just as much as he knew himself, or face the consequences.

The last member. Dr. Tara Lewis. The comedic nature of them having the same last name did not escape him; it actually put a little smile on his face. A room full of numbers; she would have to swim through them to find her way to him. He had no doubt she would, no matter how long it took her. He was nothing if not patient and she was nothing if not determined. Upon putting the numbers in order, she’d find him. He wouldn’t put up a fight. And the indomitable BAU would take him in for a second time.

For as long as he lived, it would never end. They would be never be safe - and that’s what he was living for.


	14. Penelope/Aftermath

“Are you finally there?” She asked frantically into the comms. This icky, disgusting, creepy psychopath had screwed with them one too many times. “Please be safe, my babies.”

Emily tapped through. “Garcia, we’re okay. Stephen is on his way to the hospital. His leg’s in bad shape, but he’s going to be okay. The rest of us have some cuts and scrapes – nothing more. We’re just ready to get this bastard and come home.”

“Me too,” Penelope replied, her voice laced with fear, uncertainty and helplessness. “Please stay safe.”

“We will,” she replied. “Going in now. Stay on the line. We may need your help-“

Penelope couldn’t tell whether or not Emily and the team had just gone quiet, or if the power had gone out, but one frantic plea into the phone told her all she needed to know. Someone had cut the power.

“Dammit!” she called out, pounding the desk with her fists as she stared at the phone in anger. It was times like this that she couldn’t stand her desk job. Although she didn’t have the ability to do much in the field, sitting here with absolutely nothing to do was mind-bogglingly difficult. Her frenetic fingers flew across the keys in an attempt to regain connection with the team, but nothing was working. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

“Garcia,” Emily said. The comms were still connected, but Emily’s voice was bleeding in and out. “Garcia, are you there?”

“I’m here, my fearless leader.” The moniker was used to calm them both but neither believed it in the moment. Emily’s voice was shaky as she spoke. That didn’t happen. Ever. It only happened when Emily truly felt she had no control. “Are you all okay? Did the power go off? What happened?”

“JJ,” Emily said softly.

Penelope’s heart jumped in her throat. “What happened to Jayge?” Nothing could happen to her sweet JJ. She had two babies. A husband who loved her. “Where is she?” Penelope screamed.

She was met with the scariest three words imaginable. “I-I don’t know…”

“W-what do you mean?”

“We walked in and the line went dead. But the power was on. We got caught up in chains, shackles that came out of the wall. JJ was the only one that was let go and his voice came out of a speaker. He said it was her room. She hasn’t come out.” Penelope’s eyes flooded with tears as Emily’s voice filled with them. “She hasn’t come out yet, Penelope…”

Though the power was still on, they sat in silence, and then Penelope heard the rustling of chains. “Luke, don’t,” Emily said desperately.

“Newbie, what are you doing?” Penelope called out despite the fact that Luke couldn’t hear her. “What is he doing, Emily?”

“He was just let go. I just counted the rooms. There’s one for each of us, even with Stephen missing. How did he know…? I don’t understand…” Emily was hyperventilating and Penelope couldn’t do a damn thing. “Penelope, I-“

“No!” Penelope screamed, her tears staining the phone. The connection cut out again. “No, no, no, no!” She pushed away from the desk, tired of sitting around doing nothing and grabbed her coat, barreling towards the elevator as quickly as she could. Over and over again, other agents stopped her. Even Kevin came up from where he was working to try and talk some sense into her. “What are you gonna do out there Penelope?”

“I don’t know!” she cried. “But my babies are out there. They’re scared and alone. Kevin, I need them to know they aren’t alone.”

“You’re needed here.” It took her a moment to realize the voice didn’t come from Kevin. It repeated itself. “You are needed here.” He was gone. Hotch was gone, but he was still talking sense into her from the back of her mind. “They know they aren’t alone. They need you here.”

Shakily, she pushed away from Kevin and ran back to her desk, fixing the headphones on her head and hanging it in her hands, the tears pooling up and threatening to drown her. “I’m here, my babies. Come back to me.”

It seemed like forever for the shoe to drop, but eventually the phone rang. She almost wished it hadn’t. “Penelope!” Emily screamed.

“Baby, I’m here,” she cried. “You’re not alone. What happened? Where are you?”

“I’m all alone,” she wept. “I’m in a room. It’s pitch black. I don’t know what to do.”

Emily hated the dark. After isolating herself for seven months after Doyle attacked her, the dark reminded her of being alone. Even now, nearly six years after the fact, the didn’t allow herself to be in complete and total darkness because it filled her with fear. Garcia had been the only one she told. “You aren’t alone, Emily, I promise.” Penelope couldn’t disguise the fear in her voice. She was saying the words and attempting to be there, but she was failing and Emily was scared. “Just talk to me. I’m right here. I’m not leaving you, okay. Just talk to me and all of you are going to get out of this fine.”

“Has back-up been sent out?” she asked - her voice flat.

“Yes.” She’d sent them out the second the power had gone out.

“Good. They might have some clean up to do.”

Penelope’s heart dropped. “No! Don’t you dare! You fight and come back her. I don’t want to hear any of this giving up! Now talk to me.”

Once again, a beep interrupted the line. In anger, Penelope picked up a mug and threw it against the wall before collapsing onto the floor in a heap of tears and limbs. As quickly as the line had been disconnected, it came back on. Her nerves were raw. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she was going to be able to handle it. But her babies needed her. “Hello, Emily?”

“No, it’s Rossi. Emily hasn’t come out of the room she walked into.”

“They’re going to come out right?” she asked. “You all said it yourself, he’s not the type to kill for the sake of killing. This just has to be to toy with us, right?”

Rossi swallowed so hard that Penelope heard it on the opposite end of the line. “I hadn’t thought of that honestly. With 30 years of experience behind me, I didn’t think of that.”

“Because you’re scared.” Her matter of fact tone surprised even her. It wasn’t what she expected to come out of her mouth, but it had.

Rossi smiled. “I am, but you are the light in the darkness.”

Through the phone, she heard the sounds of children playing. “What is that?”

“Videos,” he said. “Home videos. Stephen was meant to be in this room too.” The power seemed to flicker out. Only bits and pieces of what he was saying made it through. “The videos-time stamps-need them-important.”

“What can I do?” Penelope asked over and over again, getting louder and louder each time knowing that getting louder wasn’t going to do a damn thing. “How can I help?” Her throat was raw from screaming and crying.

But her question fell on deaf ears, as the connection was lost again. “No,” she whispered. “Not again.” When she’d returned to her lair before, she locked the door, sobbing quietly to herself and waiting in vain for the line to connect again. The only thing that gave her hope was the smooth voice playing over and over again inside her head.

“You are not alone.”


	15. JJ/Aftermath

“Is that Garcia?” JJ asked.

Emily nodded in her direction as they started to make their way into the house. JJ knew Penelope – maybe better than most, other than Morgan, so Emily’s stuttering and strained tone was probably all an effort to calm her down. Penelope hated being helpless more than anything else in the world, so she was probably losing her mind at the moment, stuck in her lair. 

She wasn’t the only one.

Everyone was on edge. They’d already gone through hell trying to get Diana back from Cat and Lindsey, and getting Spencer out of jail. The last thing they needed was this. Everyone was distracted. Everyone was tired. They all just wanted to go home, and now Scratch had made his way out of the woodwork again. JJ would bet money on the fact that Scratch had been watching Cat and Lindsey the entire time, knew that Spencer was now out of prison, and purposely wormed his way back in the BAU’s presence because he knew how badly they were suffering - that their minds were splintering and his reappearance would break them entirely. Psychological warfare was Scratch’s specialty.

JJ heard Emily mention Stephen – that he was okay and on his way to the hospital. “We will,” she heard Emily say. “Going in now. Stay on the line. We may need your help-“

“What happened?” JJ asked when Emily pulled the phone away and stared at it for a second, her teeth gritted. She closed her eyes for two seconds and took a deep breath to compose herself. JJ could see how much having to be in charge was killing her right now; it was not something she envied.

Emily glanced around the house. At least from the outside it had looked like a house. “The line went dead.”

“But the power is still on,” Luke said.

Tara and Rossi made their way into the house behind Luke, leaving five people and five doors. The room they were standing in was minuscule – dank and dark. Even the floors were slick. They all found themselves looking down at the liquid under their feet, praying it was water and not blood.

A loud sound reverberated throughout the small room, bouncing from wall to wall and before they knew it, chains and shackles had popped out of the concrete, binding themselves around their wrists and ankles. Rossi grunted as his wrists were bound, tugging at the chains, which rustled against the concrete. All the while, Luke cursed and wrenched his hands away from wall, nearly breaking bones in the process. “What the hell is going on?” Tara said. “I want this fucker’s head on a spike.”

“You and me both,” Emily replied as she bit her tongue.

As they all searched around, trying to figure out what to do and where to go, JJ’s shackles retreated into the walls and the furthest door from her opened slightly before the power went out completely. “What do I do?” she asked, her voice shaking as she looked her boss and friend. “Do I go?”

All five team members glanced at each other. “Scratch is all about psychological torture,” Tara said. “It’s not about killing you. It’s your mind he wants.”

“I suspect that’s what he wants for all of us,” Rossi added. “Stay strong.”

Emily nodded. She didn’t want to see JJ go in; she was so afraid she wouldn’t come out, but they were completely at his mercy, so they had to play by his rules and his game. “We are all here for you. Do not let him get in your head.”

“At least don’t let him stay there,” Luke finished. He knew, as they all did, that Scratch was going to tear them down, it was just a matter of them all winning their individual battles so the war could be won.

JJ swallowed hard and turned around, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. The second the door was closed, she heard it lock, the single sound echoing in her mind. She could easily allow the fear and anticipation to fog her mind, but she promised herself he wouldn’t get to her and instead filled her mind with thoughts of her three boys – they would keep her strong.

With any luck. 

Before her stood a chair, completely wooden save for metal pieces near the wrists and ankles; it looked like an electric chair. The corner of her mouth twitched and the scarred skin on her chest tightened. Askari had electrocuted her; he’d put a dampened towel against her heart and shocked her into submission. “No,” she whispered under breath. He was going to make her sit in it. Scratch was going to shock her. He was going to make her relive her worst memories in order to get out of his room; she just knew it. “You will not break me.” She hoped he was listening. “I will not let you break me.”

A shiver ran up her spine. Although he wasn’t there, JJ believed it was his lopsided, calm smile that caused the cold to enter her body. Before she sat down, she ripped a piece of her shirt off and bit down on it, knowing what was to come. The second she hit the chair, the power went back on, flickering at first and causing her heart to pick up its pace. But she remained steadfast.

Zap.

It was a short shock. Only enough to focus on the burning pain and not enough to bring the painful memories back to the forefront of her mind. Her eyes had closed in an effort to stave off the hurt and when she opened them, her eyes burned at the light.

It flickered.

It went off.

Another zap – this one was longer. She gritted her teeth, feeling the roots grind against the material of the shirt she was biting. Giving Scratch what he wanted, hearing her scream and cry, was the last thing she intended to do, but as he toyed with her, flickering the lights on and off, and zapping her at varying intervals, she started to lose her resolve.

Each zap tore at her resolve and groans rumbled upward and fell from her lips; she could do nothing to stop them. Tears fell from her eyes as the shocks continued and images of her child that could have been flashed before her - the child that could have lived if not for Askari and Hastings.

Don’t let him stay there. That’s what Luke had said. Scratch wanted inside her mind. He wanted to break her, because for him that was more satisfying than physical pain. She wouldn’t allow it; she refused to.

Scratch was calculating. He knew how much pain a body could withstand. He wasn’t going to push her body past her limit; it was her mind he would test. Seconds passed into minutes, which passed into hours – at least that’s what it felt like to her. The power cut in and out, the shocks that racked her body increased and decreased in intensity, never allowing her to get accustomed to the pain, and although the tears flowed freely as she was unable to control them, she found the camera on the wall and stared into it the entire time. She would not let him win the war. Through sheer grit, determination and the love of her family, she had banished Askari and Hastings from her mind, and she would do the same with Scratch.

Eventually, after minutes or hours or days, she didn’t know, the shackles on the chair released themselves and she toppled out of the chair, crawling limply towards the door and making her way into the common area once more. Except this time, she was met with the cold, damp, gray walls, and empty shackles hanging limply from the wall.

The rest of the team was gone.


	16. Luke/Aftermath

It was like he was losing his partner all over again. When Rossi had asked him to join the BAU, he’d declined at first, saying he enjoyed the actual chase more than getting inside their heads, but he’d been so wrong about what they did, and he should’ve been careful what he wished for. Now, he was watching again as people he cared for got picked off by the job.

Stephen had already been sent to the hospital. Thankfully, he was probably going to be okay; Luke would get to see him again, unlike his former partner who’d died in front of his eyes. And although Spencer wasn’t gone per se, he was definitely going to be changed by his experiences, and Luke hadn’t had the chance to tell him how he felt.

The former Fugitive Task Force agent had a bad feeling about whatever was to come as they approached the house where Scratch had last been tracked. Garcia was in a panic, considering they’d nearly died in their vehicles twice in the past hour, so Emily was doing her best to allay the technical analyst’s fears. Despite the fact that their relationship was somewhat strained and centered around bickering, he felt bad for her. If he were sitting around helpless right now, he would’ve absolutely lost his mind.

“Garcia,” he heard Emily say exasperatedly. “We’re okay. Stephen is on his way to the hospital. His leg’s in bad shape, but he’s going to be okay. The rest of his have some cuts and scrapes – nothing more. We’re just ready to get this bastard and come home.” God, that was an understatement, Luke thought to himself. Scratch was without a doubt the worst man he’d come across during more than 10 years with the Bureau; Luke wanted him caught and he wanted to go home; Spencer was going to need time to heal from his time in prison, but Luke wanted to be there for him, and he couldn’t do that in the way he wanted if he didn’t tell Spencer how he felt. Those were the only two things keeping him going – revenge for the hell that he and his team had been put through, and the promise of something with Spencer.

As Luke took in the damp and boxed in walls of the common area of the house, he took in his surroundings. Emily’s voice crackled in and out of his mind until he saw her stare at the phone in confusion out of the corner of his eye. “What happened?” JJ asked.

The line went dead. “But the power is still on,” Luke said. So that probably meant that Scratch had purposely cut the line. That wouldn’t have done much on their part because Emily was hanging up, which meant cutting the team off from Garcia was probably Scratch’s way of hurting her; Luke made a mental note that if he got Scratch alone, he’d throw in an extra punch or two for Garcia.

While the rest of the team made their way into the small space, Luke glanced around, taking in anything of note that might help them find Scratch and take him down once and for all. The floors were damp and there were slight scratches in the wall – probably his sick way of marking his territory. After all, this seemed to just be a renovated house. On the outside, there were no identifying markers. It was only on the inside that anyone could see something was wrong. There were five doors leading outward from the common area: Tara, Rossi, JJ, Emily and himself. One door for each of them, which meant that either Scratch knew one of the members of the team would be taken out or incapacitated by crash, or one of those doors was meant for two of them.

Before he could ask Emily what it was they were supposed to do next, a series of clashing sounds caught them all off guard as chains and shackles came out from the walls and bound them in place. They all either froze in place or in his case, wrenched at the chains and hurt his wrists in the process. Nothing penetrated his thoughts as he stared at the cold metal and tried to figure a way out, but there was no use fighting it. JJ had been let go and then the power went out all together. He wanted them all isolated. Scratch wanted to toy with their minds. They would have to play by his game if they wanted any chance of making it out alive.

JJ contemplated whether to go toward the door that had opened or not. But Tara reassured her of what they all already knew – that Scratch wasn’t about physical pain, at least not only. It was their minds he wanted to fuck with long term. They would make it out of here alive, it was just a matter of whether their minds would be intact or not. “Stay strong,” Luke heard Rossi say.

Emily was desperate for JJ not to go even though she was telling her to; her face betrayed her words. “We are all here for you. Do not let him get in your head.”

“At least don’t let him stay there,” Luke blurted out. When he watched her go, he had to hold his tongue. It was begging him to get her not to go inside. Sure, he was fairly positive she’d come out alive, but he could only imagine what he’d put her through mentally.

JJ closed the door, leaving the four of them left to contemplate what was happening to her – what could soon he happening to them. Knowing Scratch, each room was designed to inflict maximum, mental, individualized pain. They spent whatever minutes or hours were passing in near silence, occasionally giving each other pep talks. Keep him out your head was the gist of what everyone was saying, but it was so much easier said than done.

None of them had any idea how much time had passed since JJ left, but the next thing they knew, Luke’s shackles had been released, and for a few moments, among the flickering lights, he sat there and composed himself. “Are you okay?” Rossi asked.

“As okay as any one of us can be. Just trying to wall up my brain.” When he walked into that door, Luke knew he was going to be facing some shit that had long since been pushed away.

The flickering lights went off once again, but not before the door to “his” room opened just as it had in JJ’s case. He walked into the room and the door closed behind him, but he didn’t hear anything except the beat of his heart as the lights went on.

Ever since he was a child, Luke had been afraid of heights – a fear that had only been exacerbated during his time in with the U.S. Army Rangers.

His heart was beating so fast, he felt like he was about to vomit. Below his feet stood a painstakingly detailed painting. It was a hole with people crawling out of it. As he stared in horror at the deformed faces trying to figure out who they were, the power flickered on and off over and over again.

In a panic, he stepped back into the wall, trying to close his eyes and push away the fear. He was on the ground. He couldn’t fall, but the painting…it was so real. When he opened his eyes, he stared down under a half-lidded gaze and caught sight of the faces. Though deformed, he knew them. The faces that stared back at him were his lost rangers, the most prominent of them being his former partner, Ryan. The eyes. In the eyes, he saw fear and desperation as they clawed out of the ground. He couldn’t save them. The mission had gone south and only three had made it out alive. All because he made the wrong call. They lost their lives; he could never take it back – and they were here to haunt him.

As the lights kept flickering in and out of existence, he pushed back into the wall, but he couldn’t push himself far enough away. His gaze was glued to the faces crawling toward him.

Closing his eyes, he forced himself to take a deep breath and steady himself. He’d made the best decision he could at the time. He couldn’t take it back, but if he didn’t get out of his own head right now, other faces could easily join the ones that were staring back at him. JJ, Emily, Rossi, Tara, Garcia, Spencer…Spencer. If Spencer could make it through prison, then he could get through this. What would Spencer do to get himself out of here?

Observe.

He needed to observe.

The answer wasn’t on the ground. That was only meant to send his mind reeling. That meant the answer had to be up. It was on the walls or the ceiling. It had to be. Luke swallowed hard and pushed off of the wall, refusing to look down at the floor; if he did, he’d collapse and never get up.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a small glow coming from above the whirring blades of the ceiling fan. He walked over to stand underneath it. It was a bunch of numbers; their had to be 30 or 40 of them, but only three were slightly larger than the rest. 07, 24 and 09. September 24, 2007. The day he lost Ryan and the rest of his men.

Without giving himself time to think, he ran back toward the door and put in the three numbers of the lock in order, heaving a small sigh of relief when the lock clicked open and he pushed it out of his way. As the sweat dripped down his face and back, he stumbled into the wall he’d been latched to earlier and saw JJ. “What happened?” he asked, forgetting his own troubles and taking in the paleness of her face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m alive.”

For now, that was enough. Tara, Rossi and Emily were nowhere to be found.


	17. Emily/Aftermath

There was nothing like being dumped straight from the frying pan and into the fire. Being subordinate to Hotch was one thing, heading Interpol, where she only cared for her co-workers in a co-worker way was another, and then there was this – having to be in charge of the safety of those she loved, in her heart, as well as on paper, and have her ass on line when it came to catching or not catching the bad guy – this bad guy. He’d been plaguing them for years.

The only thing keeping her eyes open and her mind focused was the incessant chattering of Garcia. Although it was driving her crazy on the one hand, without it she’d collapse in exhaustion. “Are you finally there?” Garcia asked angrily. Not angry at her or the team of course, just angry at the situation that she couldn’t control. Emily felt her anger on a deep level; she was so tired, needing this to be over one way or another. “Please be safe, my babies.”

Emily took in her surroundings, the slightly dilapidated, but all together normal-looking house staring back at her. “Garcia, we’re okay.” As she approached the house with the team at her back and SWAT checking the doorways to ensure that there were no traps, she convinced Garcia as best as she could that they’d all come out with nothing more than nicks and scrapes, except for Stephen who was on his way to the hospital.

“Please stay safe,” Garcia said softly. In three words, she’d conveyed so many emotions – fear, uncertainty, helplessness, anger, sadness.

Emily knew how difficult it must’ve been for Garcia to hear that they were in pain, having to sit there with nothing to do but wait. “We will. Going in now. Stay on the line. We may need your help-“

In an instant, the line went dead, but as she looked up the power was still on, so Scratch had cut off the connection himself. “But the power is still on,” Luke said from behind her.

SWAT had cleared the general area, leaving Tara and Rossi to make their way into the house behind JJ, Luke and Emily. An uneasy feeling rolled through her stomach as she looked toward the floor, covered in a sheen of some kind of shining liquid. She prayed it wasn’t blood, and for once a prayer was answered. Probably just water to add to the ambience and creep factor – something Scratch was extremely efficient in.

Once all of them were inside, she took in the plain, but imposing surroundings that were the five doors. There was one for each of them. Before she could formulate a plan, or even a thought really, jarring clanging sounds bounced against the walls of the small room, chains and shackles popping out from small concrete slabs and fixing themselves around their ankles and wrists. Of course Scratch had engineered this kind of bullshit. Rossi and Luke tugged at the chains, as if somehow brute strength would allow them to escape their shackles, but Emily just stood there and attempted to figure out what to do. Maybe there was something around that she or one of the others could use to pick the locks. “What the hell is going on?” Tara said. “I want this fucker’s head on a spike.”

“You and me both,” Emily snapped, the venom in her voice aimed at the man who was undoubtedly laughing behind cameras right now.

Slowly, they all seemed to realize that they weren’t getting out of this unless Scratch wanted them to, so they all glanced around the room, looking for any clue, big or small, that might get them out of this hopeless situation. Before anyone had even said a word, JJ’s chains unbound themselves and let her go, a door opening across from her that beckoned her to its unknown depths.

Emily would’ve taken all of the punishment to come herself if it meant sparing her friends, but seeing five people and five doors made her realize at least part of his plan. JJ asked if she should go, but deep down, she knew what they all knew. They were pawns to him; they had to use those positions as pawns to make him believe he had the upper hand. “It’s your mind he wants,” Tara said.

Of course that’s what he wanted. Watching people unravel got his rocks off, and considering all their pasts and insecurities, Scratch had plenty of information to work with. Emily was petrified JJ wouldn’t come back, especially considering her miscarriage, which only she and Reid knew about. Scratch was going to draw on that; Emily just knew it. “We are all here for you. Do not let him get in your head.”

Shortly after JJ left for her room, the lights flickered and stayed over and over again, leaving them all on edge before Luke was let go from his shackles. He too left her sight; she watched helplessly, the metal grating on her skin as she pulled at her restraints. The door closed behind him and then her chains were returned to their place in the wall. With lights flickering on and off, and the uncertainty of whether her friends would return floating all around her, Emily wasn’t sure whether she was grateful she was next or not. She wanted this to be over, but she felt it was her duty as Unit Chief to watch all of her friends retreat into their separate rooms.

“You are not alone, okay kid?” Rossi said, his eyes pleading with her to stay strong even though he could see she was faltering.

Tara did the same. In the year or so since she’d joined, Emily had become great friends with her. “We’re all here for you. This will all be over soon. I promise.” Something about the tone of her voice made Emily believe her, so she nodded and turned toward the room she was supposed to enter.

She had no clue as to JJ’s and Luke’s experiences in their rooms, but as she looked around she saw very little of anything in her room. A few nails and some thin pieces of metal, but nothing else. Before she could even circle around the room, the walls on either side of her began to move toward her.

Her biggest fears – isolation and claustrophobia.

Slowly, the walls crawled closer to her. She wanted to scream for help, but she wasn’t going to get any and screaming would only give Scratch exactly what he wanted – her fear. Without thinking, she grabbed the nails and pieces of metal and attempted to dig them under the walls in an attempt to keep them at bay. Her hands were bloodied from frantically spearing the metal into the walls, but they stopped. Did they stop because of her plan or because Scratch wanted her alive?

As she stood in the small space left by the domineering walls, she attempted to take a deep breath. Though the lights had been flickering as she attempted to stave off her impending doom, they’d been completely shut off. Her worst fear was being alone, both figuratively and physically, and her she was alone in the dark in a cramped space barely large enough for her to turn around.

Her seven months away from the team in the wake of Doyle’s return had truly taken its toll. She would’ve gladly confronted him personally time and time again rather than gone through what she’d went through one more time. Being away from the one’s she loved with no way to help them if he decided he did want to come after them had been heartbreaking; each and every day she’d struggled with whether or not to fly back home and reveal herself to her friends. Here I am. I’m alive and I’ve missed you so much.

A creaking sound caught her attention and her eyes opened. She hadn’t even realized they’d been closed. There were tears staining her face as she pushed back against the wall, attempting to use her legs to budge the wall backwards and give her some kind of breathing room, but it was no use.

Choking sobs wracked her body as she smacked the wall, hot tears streaming down her face and falling to the floor at her feet. If she had to place any money on it, she’d bet the walls were soundproof to everyone but Scratch, who had to have a camera situated around here somewhere. She wanted to be strong, but she couldn’t hold it any longer and she screamed until her throat felt like it was being torn apart.

As she stopped screaming, the lights went on and the walls retreated quickly leaving a patch on the floor with three numbers on it. With shaking breaths, she glanced toward the door and realized there was a lock on the inside. Using the three numbers, she stumbled out and into Luke and JJ. “What happened?” she asked, her voice laden with fear. “Where did Rossi and Tara go?”

“They’re still in their rooms,” Luke said as he attempted to kick at their doors again. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

JJ wrapped her arms around Emily’s neck, sensing what Scratch had used to get inside her head. “We do whatever he expects us to do, until we can get the upper hand.”


	18. Rossi/Aftermath

Although he’d sworn an oath to uphold the law, he’d done it once and he’d do it again. A couple years earlier, he’d avenged Gideon’s death by ending the life of the man that took his. And here he was, walking into the house alongside JJ, Emily, Luke and Tara, internally debating as to whether or not he’d do it again. If he had the chance, would he kill Scratch in the same way he’d killed Gideon’s murderer? He wanted to say no; that doing what he did in Gideon’s case was a one-time thing (something he still struggled with till this day), but deep down he knew that if he had the chance, if he was the one that came face-to-face with Scratch, he’d pull the trigger and end their suffering once and for all. He had a blood-related family now, but he’d always had family – this team was his family and Scratch and tortured them all enough.

On the other side of the phone that Emily had been holding to her ear, Rossi could hear Garcia chattering away, begging them all to stay safe, while Emily did her damnedest to convince the eccentric technical analyst that everyone was okay, even Stephen, who was on his way to the hospital as they spoke. 

Rossi was caught in the middle of his internal debate when the line went dead, cutting Garcia off from the rest of the group. In their confusion and distraction, Scratch must’ve taken the opportunity, because before any of them could react, chains and shackles and sprung out of the walls to bind them in place.

“Dammit,” he muttered, pulling at the chains to no avail.

All of them attempted to look for a way out, but he quickly realized that they needed to play by his game, and one by one, he watched as his friends walked into their respective rooms, possibly never to return. The only thing that gave him any hope was the fact that Scratch got his rocks off to psychological torture, not physical, at least not physical for the sake of it. Any physical torture was used to solicit a psychological reaction, meaning the subject had to be alive to remain tortured.

Scratch knew everything about them – everything he could find on paper or online. What he didn’t know was the strength that lay within each one of them. They’d been through too much to let Scratch be their downfall.

JJ, Luke and Emily had already been set free of their restraints and it had barely been 15 minutes. Then, he was finally let go. “Are you okay if I leave?” he asked Tara. The idea of leaving her here alone didn’t sit well with him, but he couldn’t think of another way out of this.

“I’m fine,” she said exasperatedly. She didn’t want to be left alone either, but if it meant that she might get to go toe-to-toe with Scratch, she would take it. Unlike her teammates, Tara held no qualms about taking out the threat if necessary. “Be safe. And stay strong.”

“You too,” he said. Leaving her was one of the hardest things he’d had to do in recent memory, his footsteps heavy as he walked toward his own open door, but once he walked through, he was met with exactly what he expected – but that didn’t make it easier to handle.

Televisions surrounded him; alight with videos of the ones he loved.

Joy.

Caroline. 

Erin.

And others still with video of Monica, Maya and Eli. Stephen was meant for this room too, but fate had had other plans.

As his eyes drifted from Stephen’s screens to his own, his eyes dropped onto his daughter, videoed by her husband, Rossi’s son-in-law, when she was pregnant with Kai. She was so happy and beautiful – her eyes shining with the joy of bringing a new baby into the world. The image flitted quickly to her in the hospital post-birth. Another video courtesy of her husband. Again, she looked happy, but behind her eyes, he could see her sadness – sadness that was a result of his absence from her life. Hayden was there, and she’d wanted him there too, but at the time they hadn’t known each other. They’d missed so much time together.

His breath caught in his lungs as the video looped over and over again. The tears stung at the corners of his eyes as he switched his gaze to the next screen over. This one played old video of him and Caroline together, but when he noticed what she was wearing he realized it was around the day they’d lost their son – the son who never had the chance to live. Carolina looked so distraught, so numb, and he had been so helpless, unable to give his wife any peace of mind.

In his life, peace of mind seemed to be a joke. Just when he thought he had some, like when he started his relationship with Strauss, it was taken away. He’d been so close to being there for her as she died, something that was apparently filmed through CCTV at the time of her death. But there she was, dying in Aaron’s arms instead of his own – another thing he would truly never forgive himself for.

Stephen’s videos held no special significance for him, obviously, but there was a clue in these videos that would get him out of here. He could barely see through the cloudy tears. He’d let so many people down. He’d done so many things he’d regretted. He’d missed out on so much because of his pride and his dedication to this job.

That’s when he noticed.

There were small time stamps in the corners of each video.

The day he and Carolina lost their son.

The day Kai was born – and he wasn’t there to share in the joy.

The day Strauss died.

The day Stephen and Monica got married.

And the days his kids were born.

When he turned toward the door that had closed behind him, there were three locks, with two three-number combinations a piece. One date for him and one for Steven per each lock.

Through the mess of tears and shaky breaths he fumbled with the locks, inputting number after number in an attempt to get out. First lock required the date he and Carolina lost their son and the date Stephen’s son was born. The second required Kai’s birthday and Maya’s birthday. And the last required the day Strauss died and the day Stephen and Monica got married. As the heat coursed through his veins, he unlatched the last lock and kicked the door open to find JJ, Luke and Emily, exhausted and worn, but alive. “Where’s Tara?”

Luke sighed. “We don’t know.”


	19. Tara/Aftermath

If someone had asked her even a few years earlier if she’d be working in a team, instead of on her own, and loving it, she would’ve laughed right in their face. She’d chosen her profession as a forensic psychologist for many reasons, one of which was that she’d be working one-on-one, which is always how she felt she worked her best. But then she’d been offered a job with the BAU, and her life had changed drastically. Now, she not only found herself working with other qualified professionals every day, but she found that she cared about them; she loved them.

Watching as Spencer went through prison was bad enough; he was so young and so innocent, it wasn’t fair, and she hated having to sit there helpless, but having to sit by and wait for the next move and man whose motives they couldn’t fully plot out was a whole other kind of hell. Tara hadn’t been with the BAU when Scratch first struck, but she was here now.

As a little girl, the one thing she feared more than any other was disappointing her father. Though her brother was the screw-up and that had its own weightiness, being the “good child” and fearing that every small mistake would make her father look at her with those disheartened eyes, held the same amount of weight; it was just carried differently.

That fear was coming back in waves.

If they didn’t catch Scratch this time, it would be partially her fault. Biological family and adopted family would both still be at risk; she needed to be at the top of her game. That’s why she steeled herself for the worst possible outcomes as she walked into the house Scratch was located in just steps behind her teammates.

The slight damp smell emanating from the floor brought up bile that burned as she choked it back. It had been her job to get into the minds of men exactly like Scratch, the absolute worst of the worst, so she was well aware of the variety of things that were in store for herself and the team.

Whether together or apart, every one of them would have to undergo serious psychological torture to have a chance of facing him head on, but while he had at least more than a decade of experiences to work with when it came to everyone else on the team, when it came to her and Luke, he had less to go on; she was banking on that being her strength. Scratch assumed that he knew everything about everyone, including how they would think in any given situation.

Her work experiences thus far indicated she would be out for herself. Even her personal life would show it if he’d been stalking her enough; she’d rarely gone out with the team because of her desire to hide her family issues from her team. But she loved them. Scratch screwed with them, and if she had anything to say about it, he would never have the chance to do it again.

Seconds after they walked into the house, the phone connection went dead. Suddenly, the clanging of metal against concrete filled her ears as chains and shackles popped out, freezing them in place and at the mercy of the man they were here to catch. “What the hell is going on?” She screamed angrily, unable to cover her ears as the brash sounds of clashing metal continued to reverberate inside her head. She was so tired of consistently being one step behind the eight ball. “I want this fucker’s head on a spike.”

“You and me both,” Emily replied. Once this was over, all of them needed a stiff drink – or five.

It seemed futile to try and figure a way out of this. That wasn’t Scratch’s way. If they were going to get out of this alive it was because they outthought him, not outmaneuvered. As if on cue, JJ’s cuffs released. Tara could see in her eyes that she didn’t want to go, but she could also see that they all knew they had too. “Scratch is all about psychological torture,” she said, doing her best to prepare her friend for what lay ahead. “It’s not about killing you. It’s your mind he wants.”

Reluctantly, she turned to enter the room that had opened for her. As each member of the team was released from their shackles and guided toward a specially designed room, the only thing she couldn’t understand was why they had been released in the order they had been. She was the only one left, so it wasn’t by age, it wasn’t by experience; it had to be something else. The only thing she could possibly think of was their track records regarding kills – she had never killed anyone. Maybe he was banking on that? She couldn’t be sure if that was his reasoning, but if it was, he was sorely mistaken. He’d messed with the wrong woman, and the wrong team.

Her heart beat insistently against her ribs as she waited for all her teammates to return from behind closed doors, but none of them were back yet, and her chains had just been released.

She heard a knock on the door – beckoning her forward. That’s what she though it had been at least. It was only when she steadied her breath that she realized the knocking sound was coming from the blood pounding in her own head.

The second she entered the room, her mind started to spin. In front of her were three walls with large sets of swirling numbers painted in black. The sheer amount of numbers whirling in front of her eyes was mind-boggling. What was she supposed to make of them?

That’s when she noticed the door across from her, next to the center set of swirling numbers. It had three locks on it. Obviously the numbers on the wall would correspond to each of the locks, but there had to be hundreds of numbers in each swirl. “Alright, fucker,” she whispered to herself as she approached the first wall. “There has to be some kind of clue here.” She crouched down, examining each number with the practiced eyes of a woman taught to break down the expressions of serial killers, but nothing was coming to her. All of the numbers were painted the same color. They were all the same size. They ranged anywhere from zero to 3000.

When she gave her eyes a break and walked toward the locks on the door she had yet to enter, she noticed they were all three digits long. “So it can be one three digit number, three single-digit numbers, two and one, where the hell am I supposed to go with this?” She growled angrily to herself and approached the first wall again, attempting to break down the numbers in her mind. It felt like she had been standing there in confusion for nearly an hour, though she couldn’t be sure. In anger, she started smacking the wall and that’s when she felt it – the number 9 was painted with a textured black paint. Finally, she felt like she had a breakthrough. Feeling each and every number, she found the other two she was looking for; 6 and 1974 

9, 6 and 1974…June 6, 1974. Her birthday. She spun around and put the numbers six and nine into the lock. “1974…1974…” She had to add all the numbers until they came to a single digit. “1+9+7 4 is 21 and 2+1 is 3…3.” She practically jumped for joy as the first lock released.

The next two walls went more quickly. The numbers for the second lock were 1984, 2, and 8. She’d lost her mother when she was 10…on February 2. As her hands slipped against the second lock, she muttered to herself. This bastard had brought her mother into this; he’d tainted her mother’s memory.

The final lock took more time. She fought through tears as she touched the walls and searched for the never-ending series of numbers. 7, 2003 and 1. January 7, 2003 was the day she’d gotten Gabriel out of his final scrape, at least the last one she’d been personally privy to. That day she’d gotten into such an enormous argument with him. She was so sick and tired of picking up after him; he could’ve done anything he wanted with his life, but he’d gone after one get-rich-quick scheme after another. January 7, 2003 was the day she told him that he needed to change his act or she wasn’t going to be around anymore, and he’d chosen to continue on his path.

Once the second lock released, she slowly peeled all three locks out of their loops and pushed the door open. On the walls were four televisions, presumably for the other four rooms, as well as a camera with a small red light pointed toward the center of the room. “I knew it wouldn’t take you that long to figure it out.” Faster than she thought possible, she spun around and pulled out her gun, training it directly on his heart.

“Hands on your head,” she said calmly.

Scratch did as he was beckoned, placing his hands on top of his head as he smirked with delight. “I’ve been watching as each of you play my little game. I’m just saddened that Agent Hotchner couldn’t make it. Do you want to see what I’ve been doing to your teammates?”

“Do I look like a sick fuck?”

His smile widened, sending shivers up her spine. “Always so angry, so isolated, so alone.”

She kept her face blank as he confirmed her assumption. He believed she was out for herself. Above his head, he held a small remote. When he pressed the button, the first television came on, showing them a feed from JJ’s room. She was convulsing as he sent shockwaves through her. The second showed Luke sinking into himself as faces she didn’t recognized haunted his very being. Emily was on the third, visibly panicking as the walls closed in on her and Rossi was being inundated with video of his loved ones. Tara made sure she kept a straight face through it all. Play into his belief that there was no love lost between herself and her team. After all, she had been a loner for most of her life.

“It was almost too simple to profile you all. JJ’s weak point – her children. Rossi – those he’s failed. Luke – regret, some more recent, others decades old. Emily – being alone. You – being part of a group.” This is why she loved her job. Even the cockies and smartest of human beings made mistakes every once and a while, and he’d underestimated her capacity to love. With a turbulent childhood and a solitary profession it was easy to believe that’s how she’d always enjoyed things, but he could not have been more wrong. All she wanted were people and a connection worthy of her love, and she’d found them.

She wanted to just blow his brains out right here, but that would’ve been too obvious. “There’s one thing I know about you, Tara.”

“What is that?” She asked flatly. “Please, enlighten me.”

Again his mouth opened to speak. He was digging his own grave and he didn’t even know it. “You’ve always played by the rules in life - doing what’s expected of you as a child, following protocol when interviewing killers – that’s how I know you’ll do what’s right now.”

It was hard to keep her face blank as the images of her friends played in her periphery and Scratch’s words played over and over again in her mind. “So you think that because I’ve always followed the rules, I’ll take you into custody? So you can escape again? No.”

Without thinking, she holstered her gun and lunged forward knocking him off his feet and back into the wall. Scratch may have chose psychological torture as his weapon of choice, but that and his slight build betrayed his strength. He came back at her, causing her to trip and fall backward, her gun falling to the floor. With her off her feet, Scratch took advantage and came at her, but instead of fighting as he’d expected, she rolled out of the way and halfway across the room to where her gun had slid. Despite the pounding in her head and the heated anger coursing through her veins, she aimed at his arm and pulled the trigger, watching with satisfaction as he screamed and writhed. “Alright,” he said, his back to the televisions he’d used to try and torture her. “I surrender. I’ve got a camera on in here. You kill me and everyone will know.”

“And?” She’d never killed anyone before, but she didn’t hesitate as she lifted her gun for a second time and fired.

The bullet seemed to move in slow motion, taking forever to find its target in the center of his head, but it finally hit its mark, sending Scratch crumpling to the ground. When she stared at the corner of the room where the camera was, she noticed the red light that was there before had gone off. Garcia.

In a cloud of emotion she couldn’t comprehend, she placed her gun back in her holster and walked back through the doors she’d walked through earlier. Time stood still; they could’ve been here for minutes or hours and she wouldn’t have known the difference. When she got to the first door she walked through, she tried to open it, but it was still locked. With all of her might, she plowed her shoulder into the door until it finally gave way.

“You’re all here,” she breathed, collapsing onto the floor at their sides. “Are you okay?”

Emily nodded first, her eyes still unfocused as whatever she’d been through undoubtedly played through her mind again. “Did you find him?”

“He’s dead,” she said truthfully. Looking around the room, she could tell she’d made the right decision as each of her friends released a long-held breath. Her eyes finally fell on Emily again. “He came at me and I shot him in the arm. Then he came at me again and I went for the kill shot. He’s actually a lot stronger than he looks.”

For the rest of the team, it almost seemed too good to be true, so they walked through Tara’s room in awe until they came to the room where his body lay. All five of them checked for a pulse; it was nowhere to be found. “We need to send message to someone who can check on Hotch. He made a comment about him not being here.”

“We’ll do that on the way back. Are you okay?” A moment of silence hung between the team as they all searched her eyes for the truth.

She could probably tell them exactly what happened; they’d understand. But she didn’t want to burden any of them with the truth. “I’m okay. I’ll be fine. I just need a drink. And about 18 hours of uninterrupted sleep.” The sentiment came out light, but she couldn’t bring herself to smile. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how to feel. She’d taken a life.

But this was finally over. The BAU was safe – at least as safe as they could be given their line of work.

After ensuring the clean-up team had everything in order, they took the car back to the Bureau. The ride back was silent save for Emily calling in an order to have Hotch checked on. Each member of the team was attempting to work through what they’d seen, what they’d been through, and how they were supposed to feel now that it was finally over.

When they walked back into the BAU, Garcia ran to them with a knowing look and wrapped her arms around them. It would take time to recover from everything they’d been through, but they would succeed. No matter what anyone thought, the BAU had an unbreakable bond. It was a family unlike any other, whose relationships weren’t connected by blood, but rather respect and desire to keep each other safe. It was the family they chose.


	20. Epilogue

Nearly two months had passed since Scratch’s death. At first, Tara had been worried that the team would find out about what she’d done and she’d be kicked off the team, but it never happened. There hadn’t even been an investigation into his death. Just another side effect of the job - killers died. 

In the few weeks following, everyone on the team came to her saying that she did what needed to be done. For all intents and purposes, they knew what she had done; but she’d protected her own and stopped a killer.

At first, she felt nothing about killing him except anger that she had to do it in the first place, but now she was having nightmares; thankfully, they were few and far between and she was already seeing a therapist under the guise of needing to talk things out after her first year on the job. “Hey, ready for some relaxation?” Emily asked as Tara met her at Rossi’s door.

After all they’d been through, the team needed some time together. Every single one of them, Tara, Emily, JJ, Garcia, Rossi, Luke, Spencer, his mother, Morgan, who’d brought Savannah and Hank in for a visit, and Stephen and his wife and kids, all gathered in Rossi’s living room, separating off into mini conversations that were finally devoid of fear and instead filled with contentedness and hope for the future.

Per Emily’s orders, everyone on the current team, including herself, were to see a therapist to discuss everything they’d been through. While they were the closest of friends, many didn’t want to burden each other with the heaviness of their troubles, so this was a way to talk things through.

Emily had been making strides when it came to her guilt. Although she and Mark had broken up in the two months since Scratch’s death, she’d let go of her guilt in that area. They weren’t meant to be; her heart was here now. Since Scratch was no longer a looming threat either, she was settling into her role as unit chief – a role she deserved, whether or not Hotch was around or not. She did her absolute best. No one blamed her for anything, so why was she blaming herself?

JJ spent the week after Scratch’s death with her family, as well as Spencer. Her therapy had been a struggle at the start; Scratch had brought up her most painful memory, losing her child overseas, and she’d had to work through that and the physical torture yet again. It was difficult work, but she had Will, the boys, and her entire BAU family at her back.

Mild murmurs resounded throughout Rossi’s living room, light laughter filling the warm house as Rossi left to answer another knock at the door. Upon his return, Hotch and Jack emerged from behind him. To everyone’s surprise, Emily and Rossi had helped Hotch move out of witness protection and back home. “You’re home!” Garcia cried. One by one, they all embraced their former boss, happy to see him home again. Last was Emily, hanging on a little longer than everyone else. Probably because she knew what he’d gone through all those years.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not coming back. I want to be home with Jack now.”

Emily sighed happily as they walked over to talk to Garcia and Stephen, like Hotch, he was planning on staying home with his family. Just a week earlier, he took a position to teach at American University. It would allow him to make his own schedule and be home with his wife and children. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you wanted to come back, except that I just got used to this,” she laughed.

“Jack needs me now. Although I miss everyone, now that I’m home, we can do things like this, and I can still be home for him.” He looked around to find Jack, only to see that he’d already found Henry; they were playing on Rossi’s PS4. A smile crossed his face as Rossi handed him a drink; it felt good to be home.

Where most of the team was spending time with their families and relaxing following Scratch’s death, Luke immediately went to Spencer’s apartment the next day. While his mother was asleep, the two had a long conversation about their feelings for each other. Spencer was up front, saying that he wanted to pursue something, but wasn’t sure how he’d hold up; he needed to work through a lot of things. However, Luke reassured him that Scratch had brought up some ugly things from his past, and that he’d need time and patience as well. Both agreed to be patient with each other, and since then, they’ve been discovering their meaning to each other and healing their respective wounds. Right now, they both seemed comfortable in each other’s arms as they sat on the couch; Morgan was sitting right nearby, more than happy to see that his best friend had someone to go home to. Recovery was a long road, but he wouldn’t be traveling it alone.

Following their week off from work, Garcia came back and tightened up security measures and the like. Feeling so helpless wasn’t something she wanted to experience again, so she was taking any precautions possible to ensure it never happened again. Therapy had been vital for her in regaining her trademark happiness. Everything with Scratch and Spencer being in jail had truly weighed heavily on her heart, but she was slowly getting back to where she was before, especially knowing that Spencer was okay, alive and healing himself. She’d even gotten back to her usual needling of the newbie – something Luke didn’t want to admit he enjoyed.

Finally, Rossi had been the most difficult to get into therapy, but Emily insisted and he knew it was for the best. Over the past couple of months he’d made some amends with people and himself for the things that had happened and the things he couldn’t change. Seeing videos of Joy and Caroline and Strauss had brought up a whole range of emotion, but many of those he’d already worked through long before Scratch tried to torture him. He did right by Caroline in her final days, which is all she had asked for. When it came to Erin, he couldn’t have done anything, and in terms of his relationship with Joy, he couldn’t change the past, but he could sure as hell make it up to her now.

Passing around glasses of wine, Rossi waited until everyone was ready and clinked his glass with the side of his fork. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that everyone is home safe and sound. This past year or so, we’ve all been through hell and back, but we’ve made it through for one reason, because we are a family.” Everyone slowly raised their glasses as he continued to speak. “Growing up, I always heard that you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. I don’t agree. Blood relatives are one thing, but family is stronger than DNA. Family is the people that will stand for you as the rest of the world is crumbling. That’s what we do here.” Rossi took a deep breath and scanned his group of friends. Emily and Tara were shoulder to shoulder, with JJ, Will and the boys close by. Garcia was linked arm-in arm with Morgan, who had Savannah and Hank at his other side. Hotch was home, safe and sound. Stephen was with his family and happier than he’d ever seen him before, and Spencer and Luke had come together on their road to recovery. “Recuperating from everything that’s happened this year isn’t going to be easy. The journey is going to be long and arduous. Sometimes we’ll take one step forward and two steps back, but as long as we’re here for each other, we’ll never being walking the road alone. To family.”

“To family!”

Wounds don’t heal the way you want them to; they heal the way they need to. It takes time for wounds to fade into scars. It takes time for the process of healing to take place. Give yourself that time. Give yourself that grace. Be gentle with your wounds. Be gentle with your heart. You deserve to heal.

-Dele Olanubi


End file.
